Finding The Heart - Book 2
by Tree Wyrm
Summary: Zaeed is ready to put the past behind him, but will his past allow him to leave his old life behind? There are secrets he keeps about his past, but what of the ones he doesn't even know he has..? Direct follow on from 'Finding The Heart - Book 1'. [Some MA content]
1. Chapter 1 - Friends and Lovers

~ Finding The Heart ~

Friends and Lovers

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination. Unfortunately the English language does not allow me to be so easily ambiguous about gender – sorry I had to pick one!

* * *

"Garrus!" Shepard barked, "If I have to tell you _one more time t_ o get your Turian butt back into cover I'm going to come over there and shoot you myself!" and to herself more quietly: "Damned Turian's trying to make me die of a heart attack just for spite I _swear_... He's never forgiven me for dying without him..."

"Scratch THREE!" – Garrus yelled back – cocky as ever.

"Sometimes I wonder how you contained his enthusiasm in his youth." Samara remarked, having slipped gracefully into cover beside her.

" _Sometimes_ I'm reminded that his _youth_ wasn't all that long ago..." Shepard replied with shots incoming, whizzing over her head. Samara popped out of cover and a moment later there were screams coming from the same direction.

"You've got to teach me how to do that one day." Shepard nodded in the direction of the screams of agony and Samara smiled modestly amidst a swirling purple haze like the one that now enveloped the shooters.

"It requires extensive meditation before one is able to hone biotic abilities sufficiently so that the field, whilst harming one's foes, _also_ replenishes one's own health." She briefly turned her wizened smile to Shepard and very nearly winked (the two of them now having spent enough time together to almost be swapping mannerisms); "It would take some time to teach you."

Garrus was back up again, of course: shooting the writhing bodies. "Garrus!" Shepard yelled at him again when she spotted several more mercenaries – one with a rocket launcher – enter the killing field some hundred metres ahead. Catching his eye to scold him for not spotting them himself, she nodded in their direction. His eyes narrowed – a predatory declaration that he knew what he was doing and that he _had_ spotted them – as he began to turn toward that group. He sniped one of the group smoothly in the head as he continued the turn spiralling downward... Falling, _gracefully_ , back into cover with a thud that was rendered inaudible above the sound of a rocket exploding upon impact, the other side of the rock he was hiding behind.

"Make that _four_." He stated loudly.

"I might have been impressed if you'd have hit the one with rockets." Shepard pulled a sarcastic smile that quickly transformed into a grimace, as another two rockets impacted and exploded the other side of _her_ rock. She let out an irritated sharp sigh and used her helmet comm to comment to her two team-mates:

"Great. That means we didn't managed to wipe out the last wave before someone in that group informed the next group of our position. _Time to move_."

"Remind me again why we are doing this?" Shepard asked aloud to anyone who had a decent answer as she advanced to the next cover point during a break in the fire - the mercs were likely reloading and judging from the state of her present cover, she needed a new rock to hide behind before the next hail of bullets and explosions started to rain. She eyed up another piece of cover just ahead of where Samara had gone.

Garrus, having laid down suppressing fire, decided he had an answer for her as he popped the heat sink and loaded in a new one: "Enjoying the sunshine, admiring the scenery, and getting paid for it." _Meet Garrus. King of the sarcastic smart-assed comment._ Shepard's response to that was punctuated by the sound of rockets exploding against the rock she had just dived behind:

" **NOT-** "

 _[FfffssssBANG!]_

"- **GETTING PAID** -"

 _[ffsssssBANG]_

"- **ENOUGH!** "

 _[ffsssssssBANG!]_

Thank the goddess for noise cancelling earplugs, but impacts at such close range still set her ears to ringing because the noise rang through the rock and her entire body. Sparing a glance at the field ahead she chanced it: diving towards another boulder with better vantage, passing Garrus as she did so. She was just about to poke her head up when Garrus yelled her name - she knew _that_ tone.

She ducked down as fast as she could, covering her eyes as the sound of a thousand windows being smashed a-little-too-close-for-comfort erupted beside her – _Cryo grenades... my_ _favourites_ _..._ Her armour temporarily locked up, but brute cybernetic strength got it loose a little sooner than the mercs would have expected. Nonetheless instinct kept her head down just as a bullet screamed past where her head _had_ been –  that was from Garrus, firing from the opposite direction. Shepard pulled her 'not impressed' face again.

"No more rockets." Garrus yelled forward to her gleefully and if Turians could smile Shepard was sure he'd have a proper smug one across his face right now. She rolled her eyes. He was the only person she trusted to snipe over her shoulder like that – they were old hands at this game, and he knew her reactions as well as she did. Still, sometimes he cut it a little _too_ close for comfort.

After the dust cleared and the ringing in her ears stopped she waved a cursory thank you to Garrus. "OK let's wrap this up!" She yelled back, and they advanced – biotics flaring and guns blazing...

* * *

Zaeed did not think much of this enforced 'thinking time'. He'd far rather be out there where the killing was, but it wasn't the first time Shepard hadn't taken him on a mission. He knew her style by now – she regularly tried to rotate who she took with her on missions unless there was some particular advantage to having a specific member of the squad with her. Garrus – the lucky bastard – seemed to get picked a little more often than most though. He'd noticed that.

Today though, Shepard had actually given him a reason for not inviting him along for the fun. It was the shittiest reason he'd ever been given for being pulled off a job: he was being given "time to think", oh and "time to heal" – _time to sit on his backside and mope or die of goddamned boredom_ , _more like..._ he surmised to himself. _S'pose I should have something to say to her though when she gets back, or she'll never let me get back to business._

Bloody annoying as it was, he still couldn't really complain too much. The daft bitch genuinely seemed to give a shit. First time a woman had done that in years, well since Alice really – and _she_ was the first woman who'd _ever_ done that, including his own mother as best he could recall. Besides... At least the time he  had spent with Shepard had given him plenty to think about when she wasn't around. Not that he was about to tell her _that_ , of course: ...That his hours spent away from her were not spent on cool internal reflection and 'emotional healing' but spent instead reminiscing over hot sex with her and dreaming up dirty scenarios for when she got back.

He had already concocted a plan for how he was going to jump her in the lift one of these mornings, _leave her all hot and flustered before starting her shift_. _Ha!_ He was pretty sure he could get the right result without having to remove a single item of her clothing too... He smirked at the thought. Then he remembered where she was now and that he hadn't been invited and began to sulk and feel restless again.

 _Alright, alright_. He tossed the tattered hardback antique he'd been reading into the crate that contained his scant wardrobe. Enough was enough. He'd spent seventeen hours fantasising over her body, the sounds she made, things he'd like to see her _in_ , things he'd like to _do_ to her or have _done_ to him _by_ her. He'd also read another three chapters of Moby Dick: The Whale (damned good book – he was on his seventh read), sharpened several knives, cleaned all his rifles, and _yes_... He _had_ thought about what she'd said about visiting Alice's grave again.

Shepard was right, he hadn't said goodbye, not really. She was right... he probably should. She was right – _as per bloody usual_. Better to get it done and out of the way – _then get back to being a big goddamn hero again_ , he thought with a smirk. He was eager to leave the past behind and start over, he was determined to move on. He honestly felt like he could. Besides, Shepard gave him more hopes for 'the future' than he really knew where to start with. _Kinky retirement, if we live that long..._

Either way, life was well worth living at the moment so he wanted to get on with it – come Reapers and the end of civilisation or not – such things made no difference to Zaeed once he'd come to that conclusion. _Give it all you've got until it kills you._ That was just the way he thought. He'd cheated death far too many times to want to sit around moping – or as he'd put it "waiting for death to catch up" – not now he'd actually got reasons not to be bored of living.

So now to the task at hand – being able to show and convince Shepard he was done courting death. He thought about Alice's grave, and what he was going to do when he got to it. _She'll probably offer to come with me,_ he thought of Shepard - _bless 'er cotton socks..._ He shook his head and smiled with mild irritation. He knew deep down he'd pretty much healed as much as he could anyway – _she_ had done that – even if the scars would always remain. What happened to Alice happened a very long time ago, even if he _had_ only found out about it recently. This was just... ceremony.

He was still glad of the opportunity though – to say goodbye properly. Alice did deserve that much. It was also good internal symbolism for his letting go and of moving on. _Hark at that – I'm speaking goddamn Chambers._ Truth was Zaeed always _had_ believed in symbols, in rituals, although none of the ones he followed could ever be called 'culture', 'tradition' or 'religion' by other people's standards. He ran his fingers over the chain around his neck: _I guess I'll be taking you off too, when I go... and I'll be leaving you there._

* * *

When Garrus exited the lift, Shepard followed. They were both weary from having only just returned to the Normandy, but it was now or never. She stopped first for some sickly-sweet black Sri Lankan tea before following where he'd walked, removing her helmet and taking a sip before pressing for access to the Forward Batteries. The door sprang open and Garrus was already staring at his console. She did wonder if really he'd been waiting for her, or at least waiting for this very conversation... He _must_ have heard by now about her "date".

A lump set in her throat when she then tried to speak: "Garrus." She cleared it. "Got a minute to talk?"

"I _was_ in the middle of some calibrations before you summoned me for the last mission but I guess I can wait a little longer before seeing the results." Turning to face her he asked: "What's on your mind, Shepard?" Piercing blue eyes stared into hers with a directness that made her falter.

His eyes flickered to the sight of her carrying her helmet with an internal tut: Turian military habits die hard – _Secure_ _everything_ _. Anything you leave lying around could become a health-hazard if artificial gravity gets disabled, or the ship takes a hit and suddenly changes vector. Your helmet could knock you cold. A screwdriver could become a flying stake that impales you to the wall... 'Death by tea cup'. It happens._ That last bit was a new addition to an old drill that he'd added himself, after watching a very old film from Shepard's archives about a rebellious, violent-minded and yet somehow do-right escaped prison convict who somehow saves the galaxy.

"Garrus." Shepard moved towards the bench and sat down there, setting her helmet down beside her. "I respect your opinions. More than that you're my friend." There was a slight pause while she nursed the cup of steaming-hot Sri Lankan tea before she added: I want you to tell me if you think I'm losing it."

She frowned then looked up at him, deadly serious. He immediately knew where the conversation was going, but swallowed his dread. 'Relationships' was one topic their friendship had never really ventured forth to cover before. In all honesty, romantic affairs were never a topic Garrus felt he could give good advice on, having never been in one that lasted long enough to call a 'relationship' anyway. Knowing who she was dating added twice the difficulty.

"You're talking about the fact that you're bunking with the kind of guy I'd have probably liked to hunt down and kill, if I'd have known his history and he'd been on Omega when my team was active." He walked to the corner by the door and folded his arms. Anyone who couldn't read Turian faces might not know he was smiling smugly at that moment, revelling in the awkwardness now painted across Shepard's face. It was his way of taking the high ground.

"You noticed that, huh?" She drained the last of her tea from the cup painfully hot and set it down beside her. She then rolled one hand around the other's fist and propped up her chin, elbows resting on her knees. She stared at the floor. It was already an even more painful a conversation than she'd already expected it to be - without the scolding-hot tea.

"Huh." Garrus scoffed: "I guess you could say that. But your first date wasn't exactly a _covert_ operation."

" _Not_ my choice." She pulled a face and tried not to smile at the fact that she _had_ enjoyed seeing the look on everyone else's faces as she and Zaeed had walked down that corridor. Garrus let loose a dry snuffle – a sound she'd come to understand as a special kind of Turian laugh, one that mocks with disbelief what another person has just said. Perhaps he'd picked up that almost smile - he was definitely better at reading human expressions than most of the non-human crew. She knew how absurd it had sounded anyway: he idea that anyone could coerce Shepard into doing something she really didn't want to do was unheard of until now.

"You mean it wasn't your _idea_..." Garrus narrowed his eyes at her and Shepard conceded with a nod. He relaxed his expression: "I guessed as much. Nevertheless I think you should know you'd be hard pushed to find a crew member that _doesn't_ know the two of you are together now."

"Well _that's_ reassuring to know." Shepard face-palmed. It was no worse than she suspected, but hearing it spoken out loud by someone else really made it hit home.

"Never knew you had a thing for _scars_ , Shepard." That got a laugh, and the tension eased from her shoulders a little. It was a joke, mostly... Or at least interspecies romance was never something Garrus had ever properly considered, or would ever admit to himself that he had. If Shepard had been a Turian he'd have likely tripped over his tongue on his way to falling for her – flat on his face – about two minutes after their first meeting. Shepard exuded power _and_ honour in a way he'd never witnessed before laying eyes on her – a rare combination indeed and highly valued in Turian culture. But she was human. He was Turian. That was that.

"Hey don't get any funny ideas." She jested with a wave of her hand, and the status of their friendship was affirmed, but she might not be too glad of that in ten minutes time... To Garrus she was like his sister and his best friend, all rolled into one. She was someone he could depend on and someone he felt strongly enough about to die defending. So he wasn't about to go easy on her about _this..._ which looked like the perfect example of self-destructive behaviour in his eyes.

His sister had a crush on a bad guy in movie once... She got an hour-long lecture about why she shouldn't be attracted to him. Still, from that experience he'd learned that even when reason is provided, a person can't ignore that spark of attraction. So he wouldn't tell Shepard what he really thought about them being together, although he had not vowed to be so restrained about what he thought of the man himself.

Having protective instincts towards Shepard could, of course, get him into trouble with her. Even his sister had laid down the law that he had no right to declare that her love interests must pass his qualification criteria before they dated. Nor did he have the right to beat to a bloody pulp any unqualified candidates, much as in this instance he would be inclined to do. The plates on his spine prickled every time he thought about that insubordinate merc touching Shepard... but he blinked those thoughts away and instead focused his attention on observing her reactions. Humans had a myriad of tells and it was hard to keep track of them all at once if you didn't focus.

Shepard sighed, and rubbed her forehead. "Frankly I would never have even _dreamed_ about this happening – not with _him_." Her hand gestured as she spoke to Garrus' boots, recalling various memories relevant to the conversation. "We've had _far_ more than our fair share of fights. Half the time I don't know whether I've been lucky to have him around – to serve as a reminder of all the things I stand for _because he's the exact_ _opposite_ – or whether I should have thrown him out of the nearest airlock the first moment we met." She looked up to see Garrus nodding appreciably – readily in agreement with that statement, but he was holding something back (she could tell).

"Well now," His tone took to teasing, "if this is how you go about contemplating your lovers Shepard – weighing up whether or not you want to toss them out of an airlock – I glad _I'm_ not top of your list. _No offence._ " He cocked his head on one side and threw her a Turian smirk.

She pulled a face back – "None taken." – and continued with her original line of thought. "Maybe. _Maybe_ I could have seen myself falling for one the crew, eventually – some time down the line after we all managed to get through this thing alive and had time enough to _think_ about that sort of thing. But to be perfectly honest I'd have thought myself more likely to date _you_ than  him, _no offence_." She looked up and threw her old friend a smirk of her own.

Garrus shook his head and hardened his eyes at her with a predatory grin. "None taken." _What is it humans so often say..?_ "Touché. Well it's still nice to know I was _somewhere_ on your list..." He joked and shrugged with this look of unflappable nonchalance. "For a moment there I was worried my overwhelming charm was wearing off."

Shepard shook her head and smiled, she had always loved his quick wit and smart-ass retorts, even if she could have killed him for them on occasion. "You know what? You and your ego should consider dating." He laughed at that. There was a long pause after that though, as he waited until she finally found the words she'd really come here to ask of her old friend:

"Alright. Honest opinion: do you think I'm losing it?"

Confronted with the anxiety in her expression and the opportunity to voice his true opinion, suddenly Garrus found he couldn't give it – well not all of it – without first considering all things in an unbiased fashion. To be honest he had rather counted on that happening: he knew if she didn't ask his opinion, he'd stew, but being presented with freedom of expression threw him into investigative mode and made him think more carefully about what he was going to say. After a pause he sighed and began his answer:

"I've heard humans say sometimes that 'opposites attract'. I can't think of a better example than you two..." Garrus laughed. That brought a worried smile to her face. He dropped his arms and paced closer. "Look, if you'd have asked me what I thought of the idea before you did it, I'd have been seriously concerned." The worry painted on her face turned to bitter acknowledgement. _That_ made Garrus question why he'd clearly touched a nerve – _what reason has she found to feel attached to him? Obviously it's not his dazzling personality..._ Shepard dropped her head into her hands – clearly expecting worse to come – which led Garrus to frown at the evidence presented in front of him: _But it's clearly more than just sex._ Garrus turned to face Shepard as he took a stab at the only possible explanation remaining that made any sense as to why she of all people would find this man attractive:

"But something about him has _changed_..."

Her face lit up with hope he'd not seen in her eyes since before Virmire - he was on the right line of questioning. Garrus was not a fan of anybody who demonstrated moral flexibility - something that Zaeed seemed to have in abundance - but he was sure Shepard wasn't either. At the same time, he had to admit Zaeed had actually been fun to work a lot of the time. He could have shared a drink with the man at a bar for that.

...But then there was the past month or so where he'd been an intolerable irritation and quite worthy of ass-kicking. It was as if somebody had taken the lid off him and he was being just about as bad as he could be. By the time Shepard stepped in, Garrus actually thought Zaeed would be leaving the Normandy in a body-bag. And then... as if by miracle after She'd talked to him that day... He's back to his old self... except not. Not when Garrus thought about that a little more deeply... The past week felt like Zaeed had had some sort of a personality transplant. He was really making an _effort_ to mend bridges with such sincere earnest that Garrus had been quite confused. He was sure a man as proud as that old bounty hunter was would never gone to such lengths. _Getting on our good side to please Shepard?_ Maybe. Except that would have been easy enough to tell, and not many people on _this_ ship would have fallen for it – least of all Shepard.

"He's not the same man." Garrus stated with reluctant admission. "- I can see that. I don't think you're losing it." He threw her that trusting stare of sincerity he used when he was offering reassurance. The pieces were beginning to fall into place. "He's different. My guess is _you_ know it, _he_ knows it, and you both lost your footing." Garrus surprised even himself with that insight.

"Meaning we _used_ to know where we stood with one another, and now we don't – because he's changed?" Shepard's face relaxed, as it did when she felt like she was onto a solution.

Garrus turned away and shrugged his shoulders: "You feel like the ground just got pulled out from under you." Garrus did have to wonder what had changed such a man so sufficiently for Shepard to find him attractive, but he could save those questions for another time perhaps.

"Couldn't have described it better myself." She replied and looked up at him in a way he never would have expected: she looked at him as if in this moment he held all the answers and she held all the questions. He'd always been in her shoes before now. This was the first time those roles had ever been truly reversed.

"I can't tell you it's _right_ Shepard." He shrugged by way of apology, feeling unable has he did to truthfully tell her what she might want to hear. In the back of his mind Garrus also knew from long years of C-Sec service that people don't easily change their habits or their values.

On the plus side that meant Zaeed most likely couldn't corrupt Shepard's even if he tried. She had too much integrity and was herself through and through. On the flip side however that same logic likewise applied to Zaeed: it was doubtful Shepard could change his habits or values long-term. In fact she could do that no more than he could change himself... Barring the sorts of things that can happen to a person that make them turn their life around, which are the sorts of things that are just as likely to kill a person or make them _worse_ , not better... At least in Garrus' experience.

He shrugged and shook his head, deciding he wouldn't tell her _that_. Instead he took the line: "Hell I can't say I think romancing  anybody is a sane thing to do considering what we're up against." Meaning the danger of crumbling when you lose someone that close to you _(like I did when she died)_ , meaning the danger of caving into blackmail when their welfare is held for ransom... But Shepard deserved more faith than fretting over her likelihood to succumb to such manipulation. She'd earned it.

He turned to face her again, with a penetrating stare: "Then again if you don't take what you can get _now_ who knows when you'll get another chance?" He spoke those words as they came to him, and it was suddenly brought home to Garrus that Shepard _deserved_ happiness – every bit as much as the people she was trying to save – and that she had damn well earned the right to choose how she would achieve it for herself.

There was a long pause, and Shepard nodded slowly. "Thanks... Garrus." Shepard smiled. It was a smile Garrus had not seen in in a long time. Last time he saw her smile like that was the day he walked into the briefing room straight from the operating table (Dr Chackwas' objections duly noted) when he took a rocket to the face on Omega.

Time was he caught her smiling like that at Alenko back on the Normandy SR1 – an indefinable relief just to have him around... Until Alenko found himself on the wrong side of the numbers on Virmire. It had been hard not seeing her smile so often after that, but Garrus had always respected Shepard for the choice she'd made that day – she hadn't faltered, even when faced with such a difficult decision as leaving behind someone she had grown very attached to. He wasn't about to lose faith in her now.

"No problem." He shrugged, then pointed a finger at her: "And if it doesn't work out or he gives you any trouble you can't -" He paused... She scowled... And he quickly rephrased: "don't _want_ to be _bothered_ dealing with... I'll knock him cold, strip him naked and dump him unconscious outside C-Sec, along with a list of all his offences tied around his neck."

Shepard laughed out loud in surprise and shook her head. "Garrus..."

"Oh I can do the digging and find out what he's done, mark my words – there's bound to be plenty of things I could nail him with if needs be. Plus I could always leave some room for creative flair..." He unfurled a fist in Shakespearian melodrama, with added impact for the flexibility his fingers had to unfurl without the boned joints a human hand would have, and looked towards the ceiling as if for inspiration.

Shepard's face turned sober. " _Garrus._ " She scowled at him, but it was a humorous scowl: she was grateful for the sentiment. Then her face turned deathly cold, thinking about the darker truth in all of that. "Actually... that's one of the things that bothers me... There's many things he's done that I know about and don't like... I wonder sometimes about the things I _don't_ know." Garrus watched her for a moment – reassured by the fact that clearly she had not forgotten that Zaeed was more than likely a criminal with a string of offences to his name.

She sighed and shook her head. "And in any case, can people ever really change? Can criminals ever turn into productive members of society?" She looked at Garrus as he was the one to have more experience on that front than herself. Of course if anyone else had asked _her_ the same question, she'd have had a confident and optimistic answer. Helena Blake was a good reason to foster hope... But then Rana Thanoptis then sprang to mind and Shepard couldn't help but have doubts.

"Depends on the criminal." Garrus shrugged and raised his brows in honesty, "Depends on what made them the way they are, and therefore what can unmake them." He folded his arms. "Some are just too far gone while others clearly have some cross-wired neurons in their brains and crazy doesn't get fixed through rehab." He rubbed his forehead with a forefinger. "Others... Well if the change doesn't break them then they can become pretty amazing people." He gestured with a hand as memories of C-Sec came flooding back to remind him of that:

"One of the best C-sec officers I ever met was herself previously a career-criminal. She used her knowledge of the criminal underworld to do her job, and she did it very well. She tended to keep her head down though – not everyone appreciated working with an ex-criminal and not everyone believed she'd really given up that life. Still..." Garrus shrugged. "I guess she's a good example that there's always hope."

"I know what you mean. I suppose I just wish I knew for sure I wasn't setting myself up for some horrible fall later down the line." Shepard pulled a helpless smile as she shrugged.

"Risk nothing, gain nothing. Just don't sacrifice your principles." Garrus' cocky smile was back.

"That something I said or one of yours?" Shepard stood up, satisfied she'd talked about what she'd wanted to talk about, and feeling a little better for it. Garrus had settled himself leaning against his console with his arms crossed.

"Neither... well, both actually. First part's mine, second part is what _you_ taught me." The latter part he said with a respectful tilt of his head.

Shepard half-smiled, nodded and walked towards the door, helmet tucked under her arm and empty cup in her other hand. Turning to remark over her shoulder she replied: "It's good advice."

He bowed his head and watched as the doors closed behind her. He was glad to have made her feel better, and he was reassured that at least she wasn't going into anything blind – she was still the Shepard that had inspired him. Still... there was _something_ about Zaeed that continued to niggle at his nerves. _Am I... jealous?_ He'd never been jealous of Kaidan. Back then of course he had idolised Shepard, so would never have courted her anyway. It was only recently that he had begun to see himself and Shepard as equals. Honestly if she had she been Turian _that_ would have certainly catapulted him into thinking about the prospect of getting her attention.

But the truth was that before the last week, Kaidan was the standard he'd assumed she was interested in: human, and pretty by human standards. Garrus rewound the conversation they'd just had and realised that the comment he'd made about not knowing she had a thing for scars might have had a little deeper meaning. Still, he reminded himself she'd never shown any interest outside of her species, and for that matter until right this second, neither had he. No. Garrus would far rather interpret the prickle that had set between his plates to be his protective instincts kicking in, because in the back of his mind he perceived Zaeed to represent a real threat to Shepard, albeit perhaps without any intention to harm her on the part of Zaeed. That, he was realising, was the hard part.

On second thought: this was one occasion where he'd prefer to be a stupid, rash young male Turian with an impossible crush, rather than the aged-hardened right-hand of Shepard having developed impeccable instincts and a nose for trouble. Unfortunately, the more he thought about it, the more the latter felt true and his instincts were telling him to watch out for trouble with Zaeed. Realising he'd been staring at the wall for quite some time Garrus sighed and turned back to his console. _Maybe I_ _will_ _do some digging on Zaeed... Just in case... Damn I hope I'm wrong..._

* * *

REFERENCE:

"Death by tea cup." – small nod to the character Riddick played by Vin Diesel from a conversation featured in The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), directed by David Twohy. title/tt0296572/


	2. Chapter 2 - Tears of Autumn

~ Finding The Heart ~

Tears of Autumn

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Pale pink-orange light poured over all that eyes could see in this place of mourning. Everything the light touched was washed with a rosy tint whilst all else was cast in the stark, long shadows of a late autumn afternoon. _Seasons._ It was an odd sensation for someone who had spent most of their life in space. Seasons came and went on any number of worlds but you would never know it, living out amongst the stars. Still there was a part of you that remembered Earth even if you weren't born there, that recognised seasons.

To Shepard, autumn was always the most profound of seasons. The trees were in full senescence here, and the grass was dotted by colourful leaves of blood-red, pale yellows, golden bronze, sunset-orange and ruddy copper. Everywhere leaves were falling – almost tear-shaped in their individual likeness, falling silently from the branches above. The sweet musky odour of rotting leaves saturated the damp air, but there was a hint of the spiced scent of Valkyren flowers – a native to this planet that blossomed at this time of year, as Shepard well knew. She stood still as the stones around her that lay in rows wherever she looked, but scent, sight and sound summoned memories that left her feeling hollow and liable to keel over at the slightest gust. She braced herself.

She had scarcely believed it when Zaeed had told her that _Mindoir_ was where Alice had lived out her last years, and that of all the cemeteries on this garden world, she had happened to be buried in  this one. Shepard's stomach had been knotted from the moment the planet's name had parted his lips all the way down in the Kodiak, only to knot the tighter once the shuttle landed. Her gut was presently tied up inside itself so many times over that she thought perhaps breakfast was going to reappear. She swallowed it back down, intermittently, and tried instead to appreciate the reminder that two years spent dead (or worse) had not diminished her humanity: she could still _feel_.

"You really didn't have to come." Zaeed looked at her, his expression difficult to read. He was either feeling a little uncomfortable being here himself or he was concerned for her, perhaps having done the necessary arithmetic to work out this planet may not be the happiest place for her to find herself. That of course assumed he'd recently remembered their first dinner conversation or read her service record, or _someone_ – like EDI – had tipped him off. EDI may well have figured out the significance of this place to Shepard. Of course there _was_ another possibility:

 _Is it that obvious I'm uncomfortable here?_

Shepard did her best to set aside her own discomfort and remind herself that she wasn't here for a trip down memory lane. Realising that she had not yet responded words recently spoken, she cleared her throat and shook her head at Zaeed. "It's OK. We all have to face the past sometime. I have some ghosts to talk to myself, here." She nodded and threw him a smile. She wasn't sure if he realised just how frail it was – that smile – he only nodded and half-smiled apologetically. Perhaps he _did_ notice but didn't know her reasons and had afforded her soldier's dignity by not asking about it.

 _Did it really_ _have_ _to be autumn..?_

Shepard asked the universe such questions from time to time when it seemed to be taking the piss. It was autumn when Mindoir had been attacked by Batarian slavers, pirates and raiders. It was no coincidence that Hiro had subsequently killed himself in autumn – likely having been reminded of the trauma by all the same cues that now triggered Shepard's own memories. _Snowball effect._ _If I still lived here, if I hadn't left, I might have killed myself at the same time of year a year later. I'd not just have had my memories of the attack to contend with, but Hiro's death as well – the last living soul I had connection to on this planet..._

She had sworn never to come back, yet here she was: visiting the same graveyard, at the same time of year, and now she had _three_ reasons to associate this place and this season with misery – number three being Alice's tale. Chains of coincidence always hold the greatest power. They can push even the strongest-willed person into fleeing their own hometown, even their homeworld. Funny how even when that person has since faced all manner of trials, seen horrors beyond compare, even _died_... That the negative associations attached by that person's mind to such a peaceful scene could so fill her with dread that she constantly had to fight the overwhelming urge to  run away.

 _Is it possible that was what I was doing right from the start? Just running away?_

It was difficult to accept that possibility but harder still to ignore the fear she felt being in this place right now. Even so, she recognised and acknowledged the fact that so far, she had not faltered. Memory could not break Shepard. Anyone else might have deteriorated into a nervous wreck upon returning here and being faced as she had with this barrage of memory-inducing sights, sounds and smells. Truthfully anybody else would be well within their rights to do so... _but not me._ Shepard walked beside Zaeed as they casually strolled along the cemetery's winding paths and approached the grave where Alice lay – her alabaster-white headstone engraved with roses. Zaeed stopped and faced Shepard with a weary smile. "I'd uh... like to have a few words... on my own... if that's OK."

Shepard nodded with a sober smile, "I understand. Actually... it'll give me a chance to go see an old friend." She tapped the ear of her helmet, "Drop me a line when you're ready to go." With that she turned and walked away. They had both come here decked in full armour, as if the dead might leap from their graves and require putting back there. It was a similarity that comforted her as the chill breeze cut below her visor to redden her cheeks. She had worn her helmet as a partial disguise because this planet was more likely than most to harbour people who might actually _recognise_ her, and she honestly didn't feel like that was something she could face right now. To the people here she was a hero – a survivor of a terrible event that went on to do great things - but Shepard felt anything but a hero when she thought about how she left, why she left, and the last time she was here.

Slowly She headed off up the path that her feet remembered too well. There had been a time she came here more than once a day. As she walked, she couldn't help smiling darkly at the dumb luck that brought both she _and_ Zaeed to this particular cemetery. Her feet stopped at the edge of her mother's grave and the smile faded.

* * *

"Alice?" Zaeed stood at the foot of her grave, a holopicture of her likeness flickering with the wind - a wayward leaf whisked through it on its way to the ground. He noticed the break in the mosses and lichen where he'd planted his fist and clawed at the gravel the first time he was here, and felt a pang of guilt. "Uh... Sorry about... that." He shrugged. "You know my temper... Last time I came to visit I... well..." The moss was growing to cover the gap but the dent was still there. He drifted off as he looked at it, trying to find the words – what it was he'd come here to say? He felt like a bumbling fool, but he shook it off as his memory gave him the words he hunted for:

"Anyway I've done a lot of thinking since then – 'bout you and me, 'bout how our lives played out." He scoffed. "Good god I was a bastard and a half back then, wasn't I? I know I was. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you went through all that shit because of _me_ , because they used you to get to me." He took a deep breath. It was hard to resist going on a self-pitying guilt trip, but he'd done that before and sworn off it - this time would be different. He tried instead to focus on the fact that Alice _had_ survived... and had somehow still found happiness.

"I... I'm so... glad... you survived. I'm glad you had a life without _me_ , Alice." He dropped his head, trying not to choke on the words that followed: "I'm glad you found someone who'd treat you right. Someone who deserved you more than I did." He sighed as the cold wind stirred the fallen leaves around her headstone, clenched his fist for a moment, then relaxed and brushed off the few that had fallen and settled on top of it.

"I guess I really didn't deserve you back then. Even if I'd known you were still alive and found you afterwards, I'd still've found some way to goddamn muck it up." He paused as he stared up into the cloudy sky through the branches above. "Hell I wonder if you ever could have really loved me if you'd known half the things I've done. I've done some... _terrible..._ things in my time, Alice. Things I know you'd be horrified to hear about." He looked again to her grave, and chuckled, remembering her dogged determination: "I reckon you might still 've cared for me despite them though. You always did have a screw loose when it came to loving me." Another sigh. "But there _was_ one thing that might have changed your mind..." He removed the chain she gave him from his neck and stared at it a while, his fingers almost shaking, and tried to tell the one truth she'd deserved to know when she was still alive and with him...

* * *

Shepard looked at her parents' headstones in turn as she stood before them. They would be farmers if they were still alive now – peaceful folk tending to their crops and livestock with a love for the land and living things.

 _I have no idea if you'd be proud of me joining the Alliance, Dad..._ _but I hope you'd be proud of_ _why_ _I do what I do, even though I guess you'd probably disapprove of my... methods._

Shepard looked around and tried to appreciate the beauty of living things... of sky, of the wind on her face, of the sound of leaves rustling along the ground – all of which were things absent from life in space – to honour his memory.

 _You... always told me that land able to sustain life was precious, rare, and needed to be respected and protected. Well... I guess you could just say I took that a bit more literally than you probably intended._ She smirked as she almost heard that sigh he would have made, that meant she'd done something he didn't really approve of but knew she was too stubborn for him to tell her otherwise not to have done.

Shepard looked to her mother's grave and knew she at least would have half-understood the life that Shepard had chosen. _You used to get that far off look in your eyes then turn and tell me how you never wanted me to face the darkest times of my life alone._ Shepard smiled and inwardly chuckled: _I used to think you were just trying to get me to be interested in dating._ She grinned awhile for that, then sighed. _I've had dark times, and I've been alone - sorry. But_ _I realise now that what you were trying to tell me was that there_ _would_ _be dark times in my life, and that you were just sorry you wouldn't always be there to help me through them. I'm sorry I didn't figure that out... until it was too late to say thank you..._ Shepard sighed again. _Thank you,_ _mum._

 _At least I can tell you both I've had a few friends along the way to help me and yes mum: I am finally dating... Although heaven only knows what the two of you would think of the guy..._

* * *

Zaeed looked up at Alice's headstone from his knees, his eyes burning. "Remember when you gave me this?" He held up the golden chain as it shimmered in the reddening light of the sunset. "It was my birthday." He jutted his jaw to one side and sucked words that tasted more sour than Salarian Panarin juice. "I was a sorry son-of-a-bitch back then, Alice. I really was. I slept around. I lied. I thought the world owed me and I didn't care who I collected it from or how I got what I thought I was owed." He half-smiled but it wasn't a pleasant one – it was the kind he pulled right before he broke somebody's neck. The smile faded into rage but he tried real hard to resist the urge to plant his fist into the ground and leave yet another dent. Instead he lifted his eyes, and lowered his voice. "But as much of a son-of-a-bitch as I was I want you to know _you_ got to me, got under my skin, _made_ me question..." He swallowed unable to finish his sentence. "I know that doesn't matter now." He shook his head and grimaced in his bitterness.

He exhaled a long breath and found himself craving a cigarette for the first time in years. That or alcohol. Good job he had neither on him. "You know – I used to take this off whenever I was with another woman." He rolled his head back and round again, holding his eyes open against the stinging chill of the wind. "Even then you'd got to me." He laughed at himself in disgust. "I felt _guilty_ , so I took it off. In the end some of what that meant must've sunk in... because I stopped cheating on you. I guess I was still too young and too stupid to understand what I was really feeling though else I'd have cleaned up and found us a stable income before I made the enemies that came for you that night." He shrugged and ran his fingers over the chain as he stared down at it.

"I'm sorry." His lips began to quiver. "And I want you to know that when I was coming home to you that day, I actually had an idea that I wanted to _deserve_ you. Part of me had started to realise that _you_ were special, that there was something rare and unique about you that nobody else I'd ever met could hold a candle to." He took a deep breath and let it go.

"After I thought you were dead I swore I'd never take this bleedin' thing off again. I felt like I needed to pay for what I'd done. So I kept this chain as a reminder." He looked up at her headstone again, his eyes watering a little as he smiled. "But I'm _done_ paying, Alice. I've learned my lesson. I'm never gonna make the same mistakes again – I swear." He raised a brow and laughed, coldly, at the truth: "Finding out you survived and lived happily ever after was probably the punishment I _needed_. It was a hell of a lot harder to deal with than my self-inflicted guilt – let me tell you." He gripped the chain symbolically to that. "I swear I won't forget it. I'm going to move on and I'm going to do things better."

* * *

Shepard had walked on around to where the trees thinned into an open, grassy area of the graveyard where lay the stones for Hiro and his family under one, small, solitary oak tree. She read the inscription:

 _Hiro Weiss-Kinomoto - Only child of Yumi Kinomoto and Ronald Weiss - May the chains of the living world cease to bind you in death. May you find peace and comfort in the arms of your ancestors so that you will never again know loneliness or fear._

She recalled how grateful she had been at the time, for the funeral director's assistance in writing that. The customary memorials for his parents which matched a number of others in the cemetery for their shape, size and colouring – stood behind Hiro's. Their bodies forever absent not because of cremation, but rather because they had never been found, because they were presumed taken by slavers.

 _Hiro._ Shepard thought, standing at the foot of her old friend's grave _. You probably wouldn't recognise the woman I've become, would you?_ She huffed and sat down on the grass. _I miss your humour... I miss the way your music soothed my soul. I miss you... old friend._ She pulled a strand of grass from the edge of the path and began to pull it apart as she thought to him. _The last time I came here, I couldn't quite forgive you... I couldn't forgive you your weakness, but the truth is I couldn't face my own at the time any better – the Alliance was just my place to hide._ She loosed a blade of grass for the wind to carry aloft.

 _I often think that maybe I failed you. That maybe that's why you're here and not in some staggering concert hall performing beautiful music to billions of fans._ She shrugged, and frowned. _Still here you are and I can't change that – all that you were, all that you could have been is gone, and I'll never know what might have been if I'd have stayed and tried to understand, to share what you were going through. I ran away. I thought I was being brave and moving on, but I wasn't. I just ran away._

 _I'm sorry, Hiro..._

"Shepard I'm done if you are." Zaeed's bodiless voice ended her would-be séance before she could find anything else to say.

It took a moment to register what had been said, by whom and why he was here, but after a silent pause Shepard realised she'd said all she could ever really say to Hiro anyway. She also knew all too well that words were more for the living than for the dead. Pausing to look one last time at Hiro's grave she said the only thing left to say: _Goodbye, old friend._

She lifted herself from the grass and brushed herself off. "...On my way."

"If you want to stay -" Zaeed began but she cut him off.

"No, I'm fine. I'll be there in a few minutes."

She followed the winding path back into the trees, relieved to be leaving. As she approached, Zaeed smiled and held out an inviting arm to bring her forward. "I was uh... just telling Alice how you won't be letting me get away with anything." He smiled and turned back to the grave, and cocked his head in Shepard's direction as he added: "Telling her how you'll keep me in line whether I bloody well like it or not." He turned a pained smile towards her.

Shepard smiled a little. She wasn't sure if he was still talking to Alice, or if he was just doing this to cheer her up but she humoured him either way. "I promise." She nodded. Then shrugged and nudged him with her shoulder: "It's one of the graces of space: airlocks are never too far away..." – he smiled at that. Shepard turned to step away.

"Actually I... uh... wanted you here to witness something." Turning back, Shepard saw that he held in his hands the chain that Alice had given him. "I'm not going to be wearing this anymore." He frowned and looked towards Shepard, almost as if he wanted some kind of reassurance.

"Are you sure about that..? I thought it meant a lot to you." Shepard frowned back, concerned. "Someone might take it if they spot it..."

"It's fine. I'm sure. I've carried it around long enough." _His guilt_ – she presumed that was what he meant by that. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly: "It's time I let go."

As Zaeed knelt down to leave the chain on headstone, Shepard heard footsteps on the gravel behind them. She paid the visitors no mind, but the footsteps halted just behind them. Just as she and Zaeed were about to turn about, a little voice asked:

"Who's that man standing by Mama's grave? And who's that lady?"

* * *

Author's note:

Small nods the story of green-fingered hobbits leaving the Shire in _'The Lord Of The Rings'_ trilogy by Tolkien, and to the story played out in the film _'What Dreams May Come'_ starring Robin Williams, may the man rest in cheerful peace.


	3. Chapter 3 - Revelations

~ Finding The Heart ~

Revelations

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA for later chapters. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Zaeed rose to his feet, the golden chain still dangling from his fingers. _Did I miss someone?!_ In that moment neither Zaeed nor Shepard actually thought about the words that had been spoken. Their eyes darted first across the near landscape, then once over the space around them and the horizon on all sides. They scanned in opposite directions, instinctively having one another's back. With nobody else in the vicinity, their attention was inevitably drawn to where the words had come from – a tall, gangly man, holding hands with small child.

Shepard instantly noticed how the man had locked eyes on Zaeed with terror painted across his face as he muffled a small girl with a hand. _Trouble._ Her instincts prickled. She snapped her eyes back to Zaeed to check for signs that he knew the man, but from the look of annoyed bafflement on his face, he  didn't know this man either, nor the child. _Odd..._

Zaeed squared up to face the man. With that slight movement, the man flinched with growing panic in his eyes and yanked the child behind him. _To protect her? To hide her? Why..?_ Shepard thought that even more odd, but Zaeed seemed less surprised. Perhaps he was simply more used to putting the 'fear of god' into people at the mere sight of him but he narrowed his eyes, still trying to place the man's face.

The wind tossed leaf litter across the path between them. Shepard held her breath.

While Zaeed and the man remained frozen in an unblinking stare at one another, her eyes were drawn to the small, unusually dark, chocolate-brown face that intermittently peeked out from behind this man's thigh. For a moment she almost looked familiar... _Could I know this child somehow? ...I definitely don't recognise this man._ Barring Jacob she'd seldom met humans with skin so dark as this child – or by the same measure so pale as that of the man protecting her. _Earthers maybe?_

Well, at least she needn't worry for _Zaeed's_ safety – he clearly terrified this man beyond the capacity for rational thought. What _did_ concern her was the child and what impact the sight of Zaeed pummelling her father's face into the ground in front of her might have on her long-term mental welfare... She could only imagine how surely Zaeed had  not survived this long by overlooking details (like when someone stares at you), and how keen that suspicious streak must surely have become after his own _best friend_ had tried to murder him.

Zaeed had definitely become a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy. He _also_ had a predator's instincts, and he had honed those instincts for more than a decade working as a bounty hunter. _Fear_ , was the reaction of _prey_ , and _that_ could trigger all manner of unpleasant predatory reactions... So Shepard quietly and strategically shifted her stance to take at step forward, planting herself where she could quickly move to stand between Zaeed and this man. She readied herself to intervene.

Finally Zaeed broke the silence with a cock of his head and asked: "You... know me?"

The man only blinked and Zaeed's expression grew darker with suspicion and threat. Meanwhile a little face with fiery eyes, kept trying to pop up and around the man's hand to snatch a look at him. _She's bold, this one –_ thought Shepard with a quick glance. She tried then to remember the words this little girl had spoken that first drew their attention to begin with – _what was it she'd said? Something like..._

' _Who's that man standing by...'_

Shepard gulped as she seized the words from her memory:

...' _Mama's grave'._

\- Which would make her Alice's daughter. For one shocking moment Shepard wondered if Zaeed had heard those words himself or if he hadn't stop to think about them. She wondered if this could be his daughter. He never mentioned Alice having a daughter. Does that mean he didn't know?

 _...Would he have_ _lied_ _about it, if he knew?_

She kicked herself for thinking that. He'd been honest on everything that mattered since they got together. She felt a pang of guilt for doubting him, but it was always in the back of her mind: that she knew he _could_ lie, and well enough to cover his tracks.

 _No..._ She almost sighed with relief: _She's too young._ _She couldn't be his..._

 _Unless..._

 _Amonkira – Did Alice freeze the embryo?!_

It was possible, but for the fact that Zaeed had given her the distinct impression that Alice was poor and this man didn't exactly look he was made of money, either. Still... It _would_ explain this man's reaction if she had. Maybe Alice had simply told her new love about her last love, but then how would he have known to recognise Zaeed today? That made no sense. He _had_ to have either known Zaeed _before_ his disfigurement, or since then.

The knife-edge silence continued... Until the sound of Zaeed's gloved hand clenching into a fist, panicked the other man into speaking. He squeezed the little girl's shoulder hard enough that it must have caused discomfort – she squirmed in his hold and made an unhappy sound as he blurted out with a shake in his voice:

"Please! _Please_ don't hurt her!"

"Don't be a bleedin' fool! _Why_ would I hurt a child?!" Zaeed snapped – deeply insulted and all the more confused. This was the moment Shepard had anticipated: Zaeed stepped forward. She did too, except that _her_ step was towards _him_. It was a small step, but quick enough to catch Zaeed's attention and halt his advance. He caught her stern expression through her visor and stopped. He looked back at the man and scowling all the harder, he added with venom:

"Give me a reason and I might hurt _you_ -" He jabbed a gloved index finger in the man's direction, "- but I don't hurt  kids..." As he spoke those last words his eyes drifted towards the child in question and his voice trailed into silence. He outright wide-eyed _stared_ at her.

"Uhuru be still!" The man begged the child.

 _There._

Shepard saw it - that name meant something to Zaeed. At first he froze as if paralysed, but then he reeled backwards from the sight of that little face like he'd just taken a biotic kick to the chest. The colour drained from his cheeks and for a moment Shepard actually worried that he might pass out – his face beaded with sweat and took on that sickly, pasty colour of a soldier about to bleed out. His face crumpled, he crumbled. His voice but a whisper, he dropped to his knees...

"U-hu-ru..?!" His breath hitched.

Hearing this strange man speak her name seemingly made the little girl decide that perhaps her father's worry was not without cause, as she then _voluntarily_ hid herself behind his legs. Zaeed only stared, unmoving, hands limp at his sides with a look of agony etched across his face. Uhuru hid awhile, but eventually her curiosity got the better of her and moments later she poked her head out again – just one eye at first, then both – to snatch a peek at him.

Her coarse black hair was tightly plaited against her scalp, the ends of which hung in two short pigtails, tied off with red ribbons that shifted with the wind. Shepard then recalled the photograph of Alice that Zaeed had shown her in the Kodiak on the way here and realised the striking resemblance. _That_ had been why she had seemed oddly familiar when first Shepard laid eyes upon her – everything about her face held a striking resemblance to that of Alice.

"...'Uhuru'... is Swahili... for 'freedom'..." Zaeed muttered, eyes watering. There was a moment where Shepard considered reaching for him, to offer him comfort as she had once done Tali in a moment of great suffering, but that moment passed and cool logic asserted itself once more. Clearly explanations were needed and she seized the opportunity of Zaeed having been... _disarmed_... to make the occasion a less nail-biting one. Quickly she stepped forward and offered Uhuru's father a handshake.

"Umn... hi..." She cleared her throat: "I'm guessing you were Alice's husband. Is Uhuru your daughter?"

Cautiously the tall man took her hand and shook it, limply, sparing her only a moment of visual focus before his eyes snapped straight back to Zaeed. _Skittish, very skittish, and far too afraid to provide any useful information._ She played the only card she could hope to play to distract the man from his fear:

"I'm Commander Shepard. May I ask how you know my crewman; Zaeed Massani?" She'd hoped that a woman the galaxy had pronounced dead, so famed on the planet on which they stood as _she_ was, addressing him and asking him a question, might momentarily shake him into dropping his guard. Unfortunately the man seemed too petrified to answer. Shepard tried not to frown and sighed instead.

Perhaps the man had been hoping he could lie and say he was of no relation to Alice, that he didn't know Zaeed, and was now frantically trying to work out how he might yet deny these things... But this man was no veteran of Skillian Five. Silence was about his only defence to hide his hand. Then, much to her surprise, Zaeed recovered his composure. Pressing on one knee to stand up, _he_ answered her question:

"Vladimir – right?" – Apparently something had jogged his memory, but he did not shake the man's hand. He paused for a deep breath, exhaling before continuing: "You were Alice's neighbour – two doors down on the other side of the hall – weren't you?" He slouched back and folded his arms.

 _Funny_. Shepard thought. _A month ago I'd have assumed from that particular body language, that Zaeed was ready to pummel the guy if he got answers he didn't like. That might still be the case, but now I see how it's also a sign of nerves..._

The man only nodded in answer to the question, as sweat beaded on his face despite the chilly breeze. He wore a scruffy beard, but even that couldn't hide the way what little colour there was to his face now drained away.

Zaeed tightened the muscles in his jaw then relaxed them: "So it was _you_ that saved Alice from the fire, got her to hospital. Right?"

Another cautious nod – this time with a strangled, vocal response: "Yes."

Zaeed slouched his shoulders and sighed, dropped his arms and looked at the floor somewhere nearby. Shepard's heart sank with the defeat she saw in his posture. It sank even further with the choke of the words that followed that big sigh:

"If that's the case..." He rested his hands on his hips, "...then you did what I couldn't and I owe you more goddamn _thanks_ than I know how to give." He looked up then, staring at Vladimir from under a heavy brow.

 _That was... unexpected..._ Shepard thought to herself – _and gracefully reserved for Zaeed._ Her estimation of Zaeed went up a notch. Vladimir, it seems, was even more shocked than Shepard was to hear those words. It was hard to believe the man could look any more shocked than he had when he laid eyes on Zaeed, but somehow he managed it in response to that statement.

Another gust of wind tossed about the leaves between them, and there was an awkward silence until a friendly little voice peeped:

"Did you know mama?"

The little face had reappeared, brimming with innocence. She had recognised her mother's name and braved to step away from her father's leg.

"Uhuru!" Her father quickly grabbed her hand to be sure she moved no further forward.

Shepard saw Zaeed eye's begin to water. His expression contorted with pain before he smiled, and knelt down, propping his forearm over his knee.

"...Yes." He managed, swallowing, trying to maintain a smile.

Uhuru's lack of fear was inspiring. Some children would recoil at the sight of a face so scarred as Zaeed's was – especially when he had been wearing a frown a short while ago. Zaeed was making great effort now not to scare her. _But then that makes sense... this is the child that __could_ _have been his_ , _right?_

"Were you her friend?" The little girl ignored her father's nervousness and persisted. She was surprisingly bold given her father's reaction. Given the tenacity and strength of character Zaeed had attributed Alice with in his descriptions, perhaps she took after her mother in more than just appearance.

"Yes... I uh... I guess you could say that..." Zaeed smiled, painfully, as he leaned on one knee. There was still that profound sadness trying to burst its way out from behind his eyes. Every question the girl asked seemed to sting like a hail of shrapnel.

"I knew your mama once, a long time ago - before you were born." Zaeed looked up at Vladimir, who still looked worried but the tension was slowly easing from his shoulders.

Vladimir pleaded quietly: "Please – I'd rather not talk about this... _here_." He looked around nervously, as if there was a chance he was being watched, which immediately had both Shepard and Zaeed furtively looking around for sniper positions. Zaeed breathed a sigh as he stood up and resumed his scowl. His eyes settled on Vladimir:

"Somewhere else you'd suggest?" - Zaeed took no prisoners. He saw an opportunity for answers and understandably wanted them, and Shepard got the sense that Vladimir wouldn't be leaving his sight until he got them.

"I... Uhm... I guess you can come back to the farmhouse..." Vladimir nodded, finally looking more plain confused than plain terrified. Fear was still a constant in his walk as he lead them briskly away towards the setting sun. Upon reaching his car Shepard quietly hung back a step or two to whisper quietly into her helmet comms:

"Joker."

" _Commander?"_

"Track our location and hold off on sending the Kodiak shuttle until further notice."

" _...Aye aye Commander."_

* * *

Shepard had tried not to look out of the window on the way to Vladimir and Uhuru's home, but getting out of the car had made the impact of the sights, sounds and smells difficult to ignore. She held herself together with a thread, but her heart skipped a few beats here and there. There were fields. There were animals. There were farm vehicles and equipment scattered about the place. It was disorienting – that moment of almost-familiarity, of memory and of the simultaneously conflicting feelings of 'home' and 'fear'.

Vladimir's farmhouse was thankfully not one that she knew (she had been dreading that possibility). The white, flat-packed colonial-issue building belonging to Vladimir had obviously experienced some extensions and repairs made using local materials, and had begun to meld into the natural landscape. In that there was comforting dissonance – Shepard's _parent's_ holding had still been pretty new she was a child, and the house remained completely white but for dirt in her most recent memory.

She was nearly grateful for Vladimir's apparently constant suspicion – while he cast around glances as if fearful of being watched, it helped to keep her grounded in the present and the task at hand. But then there was the question of course of why he might have good reason to be so nervous. That in turn added to her own nerves and almost sent her full circle again.

They ducked into the farmhouse and he invited them to sit down at a heavily scratched kitchen table. Shepard removed her helmet while she and Zaeed waited uncomfortably while Vladimir made them some tea. Uhuru hurried off to play with the koducks swimming around the small pond that was just around the corner of the yard. Having been tasked with the job of rounding up the chickens by dusk, she would assuredly be outside and out of earshot for a while.

"I wondered if it was you that might've rescued her." Zaeed commented, nursing the hot mug in his hands. "But there was no record for me to check. Most of the residents just vanished and nobody left seemed to know anything, even after _persuasion_. Not like I could go to the police." There was silence. Zaeed lifted his mug and Shepard followed suit.

"Why did you come here?" Vladimir blurted out suddenly, just as they were about to take their first sip. "I thought it was to kill me but..." Sweat gleamed on his face and he was again that same frightened man they met on the hill in the graveyard.

Zaeed half-lidded his eyes, hesitating to take a sip with measured calm, then carefully and quietly put the mug down. He then banged his fist on the table and yelled in frustration: "Damn it man what did it _look_ like I'd come here to do? I was here to pay my respects. _Nothing more._ " Zaeed scowled, and would have continued with _'If I'd wanted you dead..._ ' but _somebody_ put her hand on his knee and was squeezing just hard enough for him to notice. He glanced at the person whose hand it was, and held his tongue.

Shepard's eyes pleaded for him not to turn this man into a nervous wreck, and reminded him that if he wanted any _useful_ information, a blubbering heap wasn't going to give it to him. Her eyes then slid to the window for just a fraction of a second reminding him who might hear him, which then made him feel guilty for even thinking of threatening the man. Any other child and he might not have flinched, but Uhura was a different matter.

 _OK. No threats_.

"Vladimir." Shepard began, soft and calm and friendly: "Do you know who I am?" A shake of the head. _Wow. Someone who actually_ _doesn't_ _know me - and on_ _this_ _planet no less..._

"I thought I recognised you though." He admitted, with a flicker of his eyes.

Shepard smiled. "This is actually my homeword." Her voice took on a more humorous tone, "Have you seen the new seal for this colony?" Vladimir squinted in the remembrance then he shook his head, frowning in half-smile at the surprise.

"You are..?!" He looked a little hopeful for a moment. Her reputation preceded her, which on this occasion was definitely an advantage.

"Yes. _I'm_ the 'Commander Shepard' they refer to."

"But aren't you supposed to be dead..?" The man was understandably confused. "I mean... I remember hearing some news a few years back. Although... come to think of it there _was_ some article say something about possible sightings of you alive, but I figured they were just low on ratings and needed to come up with something. That Jilani's always got a story to spin."

Shepard tried not to prickle at the mention of that particular reporter's name as she answered: "I went missing in action and was in a coma for two years." _Half-lie. But I'm not sure even I understand the truth of it._ "I didn't know who I was or anything in that time, and more importantly neither did the people who rescued me." _Well, at least that's true from my point of view..._ "Anyway... One day I woke up and everything came back again, but it takes time to start a new life." She used 'new life' as opposed to 'pick up the pieces of an old life' – it was a subtle shift of perspective, and one she hoped would get Vladimir talking.

"I can appreciate that." Vladimir nodded – the trick worked.

"Vladimir if you know my reputation then you should know you've got nothing to fear from me. As it happens Zaeed is a member of my crew now, so that means you don't have to fear anything from him, either." She spared a momentary glare in Zaeed's direction before turning an openly friendly smile towards Vladimir. She let that sink in – for both of them. If her reputation counted for anything, Vladimir might just spill whatever it was he was holding back, if... he felt safe enough.

"I uhm... really thought you'd come to kill me. A-at first I mean." Another squeeze of Zaeed's knee kept him from opening his mouth to match with words the frown he was wearing. _Let him speak._ She told him with her eyes. At least if Vladimir noticed, he'd be aware she was the one in charge, although it was doubtful he knew exactly _how_ she was keeping Zaeed restrained. Vladimir shook his head: "At least that's what _they_ told me you'd do if you ever found us..." He breathed slowly, letting out the breath he must've been holding since he first laid eyes on Zaeed.

"Who's _they_ _?"_ Zaeed snapped. The cogs were already turning. He could smell something fishy. Something prickled his nape and instantly he knew someone was going to _pay_. Pay for he knew not what, yet, but _someone_... was going to _pay..._

The fear was back in Vladimir's face again. "Your ' _mate'_ Vido... found us... just after we settled in a different city." 'Mate' was clearly not a word Vladimir would use, it was one Zaeed would use, and from the tone of his voice it was clear that the two had never exactly been friends – Zaeed and Vladimir. But 'Vido'? Why the mere  mention of that name to Zaeed and –

 _Oh great, here we go..._

" **Vido** **?!** " Zaeed's eyes were about to pop out of his head, and Shepard feared that if the veins could stick out of his head any more than they were right now, he was going to have an aneurysm. She did her own maths as to what this could mean, and there was no scenario in which Vido's involvement could mean anything good.

"He _said_ you were looking for us!" Vladimir began defensively, confused and anxious as his tale unravelled. "He - he said you thought Alice was dead, but that then found out she wasn't and that you were crazy-angry because she hadn't come back to you. He said - he _said_ \- that you were mad when you'd heard she'd found another man. He said you were looking revenge, and god only knows what you'd do if you found us! He said you thought Alice had betrayed you and you were on the lookout for a way to kill me -" Vladimir shook his head frantically, "- maybe both of us!"

Zaeed slammed his fist down onto the table and then his face into his hands. He pulled at his scalp as like a cornered wild animal, Vladimir's eyes flitted between him and Shepard. His eyes locked on Shepard, pleadingly:

"I believed him!" Vladimir stammered, "I-I believed him..." – shaking his head and squinting as he added: "You can't know what he -" Vladimir raised a shaky finger to point at Zaeed, "- was like back then!" Shepard half expected for that finger to become broken the instant he pointed it at Zaeed (and maybe the wrist that the finger was attached to, too) and that she wouldn't be fast enough to stop it, but the accusation – it seems – fell on deaf ears. That or Zaeed was too engrossed in other thoughts to respond. That none-reaction almost seemed to scare Vladimir even more, for words began to tumble out of his mouth faster and faster...

"Alice had amnesia. When Vido found us she was still recovering in hospital... I just wanted everyone to go away, to leave her alone!" Vladimir's eyes glazed over as he looked off somewhere else in the room: "If she could _forget_ then maybe she'd be able to move on..." then he dropped his face into his hands and sobbed quiety: "I wanted her to be safe. I wanted _you_ to leave her alone."

A shake of his head: "I loved her ever since I knew her. Then you showed up and I saw what she was getting into. I saw the risks she faced, being with-" His head snapped up and he looked directly at Zaeed: "- _you_ _!"_ Shepard raised a brow as Vladimir's voice took a tone of angry conviction with that last word. Wrex had once said that even a Pyjack can be bold if you threaten it's young or its mate...

Vladimir narrowed his eyes at Zaeed and his voice took on even more venom as he spoke after that: " **You!** You who always thought you were so _clever_ trying to hide your tracks!" - _Oh I don't like where this is going..._ thought Shepard warily, keeping a careful eye on Zaeed, but he was not moving. Vladimir, enraged, continued:

"You thought nobody knew but I did! I _knew_ you cheated on Alice! I  knew! You didn't deserve her – you never did! And you're the reason they came for her!" To Shepard's surprise, and ever-growing worry, Zaeed did _not_ look up. Vladimir seemed either not to know Zaeed well enough to expect the explosion of temper that was due, or in is momentary rage he not to care. In a shocking act of aggression so seemingly un-befitting of the man, Vladimir slammed his fist down on the table and rattled the mugs as he raised from his seat and leaned over the table:

"You and your guns and your bullies! With the sort of company you kept and the enemies you made I _knew_ something like that would happen and I couldn't stop it!"

Shepard was ready then to intervene, she felt the sting of those words as if they'd been directed at herself and it was a hard thing to watch unfold. Then Vladimir's fury burned out, and faded into tears as he turned away, propping himself against the kitchen work-surface.

"I couldn't stop them..." He said as he looked up into nowhere, then he brought his head down again and his muscles slumped: "I couldn't stop them."

 _He knew._

 _He knew what was happening to Alice_ _while_ _it was going on..._

Shepard felt ill. She couldn't entirely decide who that was worse for (after Alice herself), or the shame that Vladimir must have born from that day. He turned then, and sank back into his seat.

His body spasmed as he began to sob, tears streaming down his face. "All I could do was hide, and hope they didn't know I had seen them go into her apartment..." Valdimir's head fell into his hands – a broken man. "But when they left, they left her door open. I went through the fire they'd started to save her..."

Zaeed shoved away from the table and stood up, knocking the chair flying and Shepard honestly thought he was about to go on a destructive rampage. He'd turned to the window and stood there with his fists clenched. The silence was broken by the distant sound of Uhuru's calls to the chickens... and he stayed his temper.

"You were a coward..." Zaeed mumbled quietly under his frown...

"I was no military man, no mercenary, no skilled assassin. I was just an office clerk. It was all I could do!" Vladimir yelled. Shepard stood up and sighed in a tone that got their attention:

"He did the best he could!" She interjected, looking at Zaeed for that, then she turned to Vladimir and added, calmly and quietly: "This man is no soldier Zaeed." She looked to Vladimir again for him to continue. Zaeed... slowly turned around, the fury in his eyes had withered but he still was left shaking. The colour drained from his skin and his expression suggested it was all he could do just to continue breathing. He nodded, that was all. He lifted the chair and put it back, sliding down into the gap to sit where he had sat before, propping his elbows on the table so that he could rest his nose upon interlocking fingers.

Perhaps Vladimir seemed to understand then, that maybe Zaeed was no longer the person he'd thought he was. He continued his story, calmer now, gaining strength from the telling:

"We moved around a lot, jumping town whenever Vido turned up and said we should go. I told Alice it was the kind of employment I was in, and upping and leaving at a minute's notice was normal. She didn't know any better. She believed me." Vladimir took a breath, and focused on one of the slightly larger scratches on the kitchen table.

"It was costly, but Vido said he'd cover some of the costs as he felt 'obliged' to help us because it was his 'mate' that had put us in danger. The next time he said we could _borrow_ the credits from him to make up the difference. But then he wanted the money back and I couldn't quite cover it in the time he asked so that's when it started: he started asking favours. Each time we moved, I owed him more. Each time I did him a favour, it nearly cost me my career. Every time I tried to say no, he said he could only ever restrain you so long and without his help you'd find us and it would all be over."

Vladimir shrugged: "Then one day, maybe twenty years ago... He said we'd be safe if we came and stayed here on Mindoir – he said he had more power to protect us now and that he'd completely cut ties with you over some disagreement. He said that they'd make sure you didn't find us but that we owed him so much for this help that he would need us to pay him a percentage of the harvest and livestock sales we made every season. When harvests were bad, I'd take whatever work I could get to make up the difference. He still wanted the money he'd have had if it was a good one. My name had a bad reputation by that point, and admin work was hard to find. We've been struggling. Without Alice, the past two years have been even more difficult."

As she put all this together, Shepard couldn't help but want a piece of Vido's hide for _herself_. Zaeed just held his palms to his eyes. _This is worse than when Tali found out the father she loved was guilty of treason..._ Shepard had absolutely no idea what Zaeed was going to do. She had no idea what to say to ease whatever was going through his mind right now either. Both he and Vladimir had suffered greatly, and were suffering now. That much was clear enough.

"I take it Alice never regained her memory?" Shepard asked.

"No. And I never told her we were _running_ , let alone who it was that we were running from. I wanted to. She felt guilty for a long time – like some part of her _knew_ despite the amnesia that she'd left something behind that mattered to her. She used that guilt to blame herself for what happened to her, even though she could only remember as far back as waking up in hospital."

"We... weren't together at the start." Vladimir shook his head, and doubtless felt a little awkward about sharing such details in present company. "She knew I'd been her neighbour, and that I'd pulled her out of the flames. Being the only person she knew, she asked me not to leave her alone. She had no family. I was her only friend and... After she'd been told had happened to her, she just wanted to forget and stop trying to remember who she was or her life before that. ' _Clearly I was someone who went looking for trouble and hung out with the wrong kind of people'_ – was all she would say. I thought maybe deep down that was how she coped with it all."

 _You're probably right_ \- thought Shepard, _but I don't want to say that out loud..._ _I think Zaeed is in more than enough pain as it is, even just hearing that._

"She wanted to move on and _she_ took my hand and asked if we could give a relationship a try, the day she left hospital. I was so happy..." Vladimir smiled, and it was an honest smile, if brief. "I did everything I could to keep her safe, to make her happy. I couldn't tell her she _wasn't_ safe. I just couldn't. So I handled things... as best I could."

Vladimir stared at the table, reliving his memories. "You're right, Zaeed. I _was_ a coward. Part of me was ashamed. Ashamed that I couldn't stop what happened to her. Ashamed I never told her what really happened. Ashamed that I worried she'd go back to you if I did. I lived with that every day. But as the years rolled by I couldn't break that happiness." Zaeed said nothing. He didn't even move. Vladimir resumed his story.

"When Uhuru was born Alice was the happiest I'd ever seen her." Shepard quickly suspected she knew now why Uhuru had been given that name. _She was Alice's freedom. Their freedom._ _All_ _they had._

Vladimir shook his head: "I couldn't spoil that. One day Alice started asking where all the money from the farm was going. In the end and I told her half the truth: I told her it was protection money – after all that's pretty standard for living in the Terminus Systems. She didn't approve but I wouldn't let her argue. I told her she was worth too much to me."

Zaeed lifted his eyes then – eyes not face – and glared at Vladimir with a cold rage that seriously made Shepard wonder if he was going to do something very violent, very suddenly. Vladimir caught the look and pre-emptively yelled:

"I wasn't _lying,_ Zaeed! I loved her! I loved her and I did the best I could!" He broke down again then, and Shepard wondered how many lives it was that  just one man was capable of ruining, and contemplated darkly what she might do if she ever got her own hands on _Vido Santiago_. Then she remembered the Illusive Man, and that she herself had done the bidding of that xenophobic egocentric son of a bitch. At which point, she made a vow :

 _Tell you what – one day_ _he_ _is going to pay, too. Yes. Him and Vido both – neither of them deserve the power they wield and both of them are a menace to the galaxy. Although I may have to get in line for the latter..._

She looked at Zaeed and wondered. She had expected him to explode when he'd worked out that Vladimir had lied to Alice. She'd half-expected him to explode upon finding out that while Alice was being set upon by a group of thugs that this man cowered behind his front door. She had half-expected him to go off on one when told he didn't deserve Alice. She had certainly expected him to fly off in a fit of rage on a quest to hunt down and kill Vido before Vladimir had even got to half of what he'd spoken. But instead... it just seemed like part of Zaeed had simply broken, shrivelled up and died. That or he was storing it up and saving it, to be exacted upon that certain someone, in as long and painful a way as he could manage.

He was silent for a time, clutching his hands to his head so hard the tendons stood out on them. She tried to squeeze his knee in reassurance, to no response. Then she squeezed hard enough to hurt, finding a rubbery not-plated part of his leg to dig into, just to see if he'd respond because for a moment, she actually thought he might have gone into some kind of mental breakdown. He barely responded to the discomfort, but there was just a momentary shift of his hands, as if he was about to pull them away from his face, then he didn't.

"Vido fed you _lies_." Zaeed rumbled low and quiet like thunder in the distance, muffled by his hands. "And I never knew, Vladimir. I _never_ knew anything. First I even knew that Alice had survived that night was when I came across her obituary. And _Vido_..." He forced out an exhalation that was menacing enough to make even Shepard flinch, "I'm going to guess he told you to come here and that he thought you'd be 'safe' here around twenty years ago, because around twenty years ago he paid six of my own men to help him _kill_ me. Took a while for him to find out I was still alive."

Zaeed pointed to his scars. Shepard couldn't work out if he was too emotionally exhausted to yell that out, or if he was just so overwhelmed and too numb to shout. There was silence for a while as Vladimir slowly took that in, and began to add things up. She watched the moment come and go where he realised that's why Zaeed looked differently to how he remembered:

"What did they do to you?" Vladimir asked.

"My men held me down whilst Vido put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger." As he spoke those words, every one of his muscles that Shepard could mark, tensed. It took a momentary pause before she saw them relax again.

"You survived a gunshot to the head?!" Vladimir's expression grew stormy again. Zaeed nodded. Vladimir looked doubly shocked, but looking at Shepard he was beginning to believe him.

Vladimir began to shake, his breathing haggard: "And _you_ never knew?" He stammered: "So all this time... all the moving, _all_ the money... All the anxiety, the stress, barely having enough to feed Uhuru... It was all for what? Nothing?!"

"My guess? _Vido's_ idea of a joke." Zaeed laughed a cruel laugh, but he wasn't laughing. Shepard knew that. Nobody was. Slowly he clawed his fingers down from his scalp over his eyes and cheeks before letting out a massive sigh. Staring at the table he picked up his mug and took a sip.

 _That's right,_ thought Shepard, _he finds out the same guy who blew his face off, also then prevented him from finding out the woman that could have been the love of his life was still alive, and then orchestrated the extortion of her and her family, for more than twenty years... And in response to this discovery? Zaeed drinks his cup of tea. Whole new alternative meaning to the phrase "Storm in a teacup"...  
_

"You're right." Zaeed acknowledged: "I didn't deserve her. It _was_ my fault – what happened to her. You're right about that too. And I'm going to put it right, as best I can." _Well those are not the words I expected to hear._ Shepard raised her eyebrows in surprise, but then came the part that she  did expect:

"I'm going to find that evil two-faced conniving son-of-a-bitch Vido – " Zaeed teeth were gritted and he spat with vengeance as he spoke: " – and when I find him – because believe me I _am_ going to find him –" Zaeed looked up at Vladimir, with a deathly coldness, with a flicker of his eyes to something behind Vladimir then back again – "I'm going to _cut_ Alice's name into him. I'm going to bring you every penny he ever took from you." _The rage is back. Oh yes. Clear as the day I almost left Zaeed to die because revenge had been his obsession._ "- and I'm gonna to make him _pay_ for what he's done. I'm going to make him  pay..."

Zaeed's fists were clenched tight but what was unnerving was the volume of Zaeed's voice, and where it was for a moment his eyes had flickered to focus... He had been scorning _quietly..._ and the place his eyes had flickered to was staring at a rack of knives hanging up behind Vladimir's head. _I'm going to cut your_ _name_ _into him..._ – Shepard almost heard the vow he must have been making.

Shepard couldn't help but feel, in retrospect, almost like she should have let Zaeed have killed that bastard when he had the chance. If it hadn't been for the way he went about it – that is. Still, maybe it was time to take Vido out once and for all and save herself and Zaeed, Vladimir and Uhuru, and the whole galaxy for that matter, a whole lot of trouble in the future. She took a sip of tea from her own mug and pondered the prospect of a new mission.

"Mind if I join you? I think I'd like a piece of Vido, myself." She slid her eyes sideways to meet Zaeed's.

Zaeed took the offer with another sip of his own tea, wishing it was pure alcohol, and went back to staring at the knives. He raised an eyebrow and smiled - it was not a pleasant smile.

"A _piece_ you shall have." Zaeed snarled quietly, with muscles drawn tight over clenched jaws.

Shepard then elected to take control of what was inevitably coming next. Zaeed was going to demand action, and all evidence considered, she was definitely inclined to agree. _What's the point of saving a galaxy from the Reapers, if you let people like Vido run amok in it?_ She turned to the second person who she'd met to have had their lives ruined by Vido Santiago, and looked for a way to accomplish this new task  without collateral damage:

"Vladimir. They have to collect this money from you somehow – how do they do it?"

"Vido usually likes to do it in person."

Zaeed only breathed out at that though his nostrils in a hauntingly quite but menacing way. Knowing his temper made his present behaviour very worrying. He was _not_ calm. He was _not_ collected. He was _not_ reasoning things through rationally, regardless how he appeared to look on the outside. He was about to snap and Shepard could tell.

 _I better handle this._

"He doesn't come alone though." Vladimir looked at Shepard with worry returning, "Sometimes he brings maybe seven or eight others if they want to help themselves to some of our stock. I don't want to risk anything happening to Uhuru."

"I understand, but that's our best chance. Perhaps we can work out a way to keep Uhuru safe." She looked to Zaeed, offering him the evidence he needed that something would be done, then back to Vladimir as Uhuru's humming became louder as she skipped into the hall and shut the door. "I'll find a way to be sure you and Uhuru are kept out of harm's way. When's the next pay day?"

* * *

Nods and references:

"I'm gonna cut your name into him." – is a line spoken by Bill Juke's character 'Mac' in the 1987 film 'Predator'. Honestly I think if it had been anybody else saying that line I might have laughed, but when Bill Juke spoke those words combined with his facial expressions and mannerisms in character, it turned into a very dark but powerful statement (well for me at least).

"A piece you shall have." – is from a line spoken by Karl Urban's character – 'Vaako' in the 2004 film 'The Chronicles of Riddick'. Again I just loved the way Karl Urban spoke that line - the pause, the short stare, and then the giving of the opportunity for Riddick in that scene.


	4. Chapter 4 - Hiding It Well

~ Finding The Heart ~

Hiding It Well

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

The Kodiak lurched upwards as it began docking procedures. "You gonna be alright?"

Shepard ventured, quietly. Zaeed had positioned himself on the opposite corner of the shuttle seating to her – as far away as possible. He had been staring straight ahead at the seat opposite him the whole way back from Mindoir, with a glare that – if physics permitted – could have melted it or set it on fire.

Presently there was a silence so heavy and long she wondered if he hadn't heard her - being so lost in his own thoughts as he seemed to be - but his eyelids flickered and shortly thereafter he gave a small nod. Another age passed and Shepard considered adding _"Are you sure?"_ but for the fact his eyes snapped to her just long enough for her to reason not to do so. When his eyes turned back to staring straight ahead again he finally spoke:

"Just need..."

He cocked his jaw to one side, tension pulling at the muscles, then closed his eyes as he gave his head a little jerk backwards:

"...time."

There was another, longer pause – the bitter taste of recent revelations seemingly on the tip of his tongue – before he added with a slight nod:

"Think things over."

His voice was barely audible above the thrusters and the Hangar Deck doors closing beneath them – it was little more than a growling whisper and between the few lines spoken she also got the distinct impression that he meant to do that thinking _alone_. She nodded her acceptance - of spoken and _unspoken_ sentiments - and tapped the com to answer the question asked of her a minute earlier:

"Yes, I'll be ready to take command shift soon as we're aboard. Thanks Garrus."

Departing the Kodiak she and Zaeed walked to the lift leaving Joker behind. Joker seemed to have picked up enough of the situation that he uttered no words whatsoever on the journey back. He now looked to find a reason why he would be busy elsewhere and thus _not_ following them into the lift. It _was_ a little unusual for him to be on shuttle-piloting duty... Now that she trusted EDI and the various other crew of the Normandy a lot more than when she first came aboard, it was often KaMpande that did Kodiak piloting duties. Then she remembered how Joker sometimes would still ask for the duties during quite periods just for a change of scene. He often said was nice to pilot something different every now and then.

Zaeed hit the button for Engineering, Shepard: the button for Command. They rode the lift in silence and she dared venture no word to break it. She was worried – her stomach could attest to that – but it seemed like Zaeed needed time and space. _Sure was one hell of a revelation he just took in..._ First meeting Alice's daughter, who even shared her mother's likeness, then the bombshell that he'd been betrayed and deceived by Vido _years_ before Vido had tried to have him killed. To find out that Vido had  known of Alice's survival and kept it from him all along... _May as well have torn open an old wound with bare hands and pour salt into it.  
_

How Zaeed was going to handle this, Shepard wasn't sure... Although she was sure he'd apply the only 'medication' she knew him still to have at his disposal (his having forsaken all others)... _The anaesthetic of_ _rage_ _._ Nonetheless just for good measure, and to remind her of the very real flexibilities of human minds when traumatised, her imagination presented her with a scenario where she found Zaeed having fallen back on the other 'medication' he might use. For some reason the image of him alone in a room of some dank and dirty hotel sprang to mind... Where his having demanded to leave the ship and made himself so unwelcome there, had made it was impossible for her to stop him. There... he could and would drink himself to death. She shuddered. Hell she even preferred his  rage to _that_.

Upon reaching Engineering Shepard stepped out with Zaeed and placed a hand on his arm as she held the lift door open. It was about all she could think of to do. He only turned his head enough to look at her through the corner of his eye. The colour was drained from his skin and for a moment he looked about ten years older. He stood there and locked his eyes on hers for a moment - it was a small acknowledgement but at least he noticed.

"I'll check on you later when I finish my shift." she nodded to him.

His expression was unreadable. She squeezed his arm just a little and added with a nod:

"You know where to find me." And then into his eyes with her own: _If you need me._

She released his arm. He blinked in acknowledgement and headed off down the corridor. Shepard stepped back into the lift allowing the doors to close and was suddenly glad that there were duties waiting for her that she could bury herself in to stave off worrying for a few hours. That said, she couldn't imagine a way it wouldn't be on her mind.

* * *

"Yeah she's on her way up now." Joker adjusted his hat as he answered Garrus' call.

 _"Did something happen?"_ Came back Garrus bodiless voice, toneless but ever-keen.

"Ah..." – It didn't feel right playing spy for Garrus. True he was not above listening to com chatter, but it was always at his own discretion and not somebody else's. He'd made that clear to the Illusive Man. But Garrus a.k.a. 'paragon of justice' Vakarian had a stick up his ass about certain things... and Shepard was one of them. Joker didn't put it past Garrus to take that stick out and beat someone to death with it either, if it was for something _Garrus_ had decided was necessary or the right thing to do. So Joker had done as Garrus asked but was now regretting it all the same.

"Honestly I'm not sure." He rubbed his forehead and sighed with irritation, "They went, they came back. Zaeed looks like a Krogan who woke up with a sore arse and is now ready to go on a rampage to find out who the culprit is. Shepard's... just quiet."

 _"C'mon Joker I'm sure you know more than that. What aren't you telling me?"_ Garrus was a persistent bastard.

"I think they met someone at the graveyard who Zaeed knew. Maybe the husband of the woman who's grave he was visiting." Joker stroked down his beard as he stood hand-on-hip and stared down at the deck plates.

"... _And..?"_

"And... maybe... her daughter." Joker felt immensely uncomfortable, which was strange given the reason why he agreed to go along with this in the first place – that he disliked and distrusted Zaeed as much as anyone and likewise agreed with Garrus that he could bring Shepard more trouble than he was worth. But Joker was _also_ of the mind that people should be allowed to make their own mistakes. That and he was trying not to think what Zaeed might do if he found out he'd been eavesdropping.

 _"Riiight..."_ said Garrus. Joker immediately found himself wishing in fact he'd _never_ agreed to  any of this.

"Look can we leave it there? I don't like eavesdropping unless it's for my own personal idle curiosity. The rest of this conversation is between Shepard and Zaeed, and if she wants to include you: you." He scowled at speaker in the wall.

 _"...Alright Joker - sorry I put you on the spot. Thanks for the heads-up."_ – In that usual cheery manner that Garrus had when he knew he'd pushed someone a little too far but knew he'd want to come back to pump them for more information later.

"Yeah. Sure." and quieter: _"Not like I feel like I'm stabbing her in the back or anything..."_

 _"Sorry did you say something else?"_ Joker didn't want to place any bet on how good Turian hearing was, let alone an ex-C-Sec officer's.

"No. No. Nothing." _Bright side: if he_ _did_ _hear that then maybe it'll make him think twice before pressuring me into this doing shit like this again_. Joker scowled even harder at the nearest wall, and the com channel clicked to 'off'. Of course it wasn't long before _someone else_ bugged him...

"Jeff: whilst the Illusive Man maintained the belief that Shepard should be monitored we are no longer bound by his orders in that respect. I do not understand why you have been listening to Shepard's com chatter with Zaeed. Does this not constitute a breach of privacy?" EDI – his ever present conscience – said her piece.

"Just doing a friend a favour." He stared at the ceiling.

"For Commander Shepard or Mr Vakarian?" Direct and to the point... and evidently rather more _intuitive_ than she let on with any of the rest of the crew.

 _It was supposed to be for Shepard._ Joker pulled his mouth to one side and answered as honestly as he could:

"When I know the answer to that I'll let you know."

* * *

The hours passed, and every time she thought of him, Shepard told herself that Zaeed _needed_ time and a little space. She spent a good deal of her shift trying to reason what to do about Vido Santiago and his disreputable band of not-so-merry mercenaries. On one hand she could easily declare it a mission to end his sorry excuse for a life. On the other, she was acutely aware of the fact that the freedom she had to  make that choice, insinuated privilege. It would be the exercise of power and that was power she should use responsibly – not for personal vendettas for herself _or_ for any member of her crew.

 _People think a lack of freedom somehow equates to having power in the minus figures. They think that freedom and power are separate things, and that 'freedom' just means you have what is rightfully yours. Fools. That's exactly how the abuse of power starts. Freedom is by definition a proxy for power, it is the_ _exercise_ _of power. The more 'free' you are, the more power you must therefore be exerting (and therefore have)_ _over your environment. Every time you_ _can_ _do something, it demonstrates a potential imbalance of power._

 _Every time an Asari out-lives their shorter-lifespanned competitors._

 _Every time a criminal seizes an opportunity to takes something that isn't theirs._

 _Every time an able-bodied person does or does not fetch an item off the top shelf in a shop for a disabled person who cannot reach it._

 _Every time the cells in our muscles respire to do work, having seized upon energy and materials harvested from other organisms, they enable us the power to defy the force of gravity, to move._

 _If people paid more attention to the powers that they have and thought a little bit more wisely about how they use that power, we might all be better off. Right now I have no ties and no restraint but what I reason to apply to myself and the limits of what the crew will follow. The Alliance is after my head for the Bahak incident so anything I do isn't by their orders and excluding not-quite-burned-to-the-ground bridges, meanwhile I've effectively stolen the Illusive Man's ship – and crew – and turned pirate._

 _On that note at least,_ she smiled a grim smile, _there's one person who thinks I'm doing the right things lately..._ That brought her some small comfort, even if that person was Jack. It was also good to take the Normandy out of the Illusive Man's hands, but she knew time was against her. How long before the Illusive Man saw her as an enemy outright? There was also only so long she could avoid turning herself in to the Alliance before there _was_ no going back.

Everything had to be weighed up before she'd make a decision, much as she might want, every time she thought of Zaeed alone and hurting down in the cargo bay, to hunt down and murder that treacherous son of a bitch Vido. Thankfully Zaeed's suffering aside, she _was_ compiling a long list of many reasons to do just that.

Between tasks she researched Vido's activities herself (the news-grabbing ones) and indeed it certainly seemed that Vido was a nuisance. Sometimes to the Alliance, sometimes even, albeit to a lesser extent, the Council. A few high-ranking politicians had used the services of the Blue Suns, but not usually for good reasons. There were _some_ minor government deals made that occasionally used Blue Suns mercenaries for odd-jobs... but again not many of those were what anyone would want to call 'for the greater good'.

She'd have to involve Garrus, Miranda, maybe even ask Liara as Shadow Broker for more information to be sure, but it was beginning to look (hopefully even without romance-tinted goggles) like Vido was pretty much a damned nuisance to the entire galaxy – a rather well-equipped, dangerous and unscrupulous nuisance. He was a destabilisation factor at a time when _someone_ (take a wild guess who) somehow had to galvanise the Galaxy into becoming a stable, cohesive force, against the Reaper horde whose arrival she knew to be imminent.

There were certainly more than a few broad, rational, justifications for why Vido should be taken out, and also why she and the crew of the Normandy were likely the most able force to deal with him. Not having ties meant anyone she was presently allied with had plausible deniability. With that, Shepard had pretty much made her decision:

Vido was going to die a lot sooner than later for his trouble.

Relieved at having found sufficient cause to further pursue the prospects of such a mission, she permitted herself to think of the reasons why she'd personally like to see Vido's head mounted on a pike. Zaeed's suffering was one, but Shepard had also been deeply touched by that doggedly curious and bold little face she had first laid eyes on in the graveyard. Uhuru, in some strange way, reminded Shepard of herself as she once was a long time past... before the slavers came.

 _Her mother had been through so much... and one day someone is going to have to tell her about that, preferably before she finds it out for herself._ Shepard was a firm believer that what you didn't know almost certainly would hurt you sooner or later. She did not believe in lying to shield people from unwelcome or painful truths, regardless of age. The trip to Mindoir had reminded her of that. _How many children had been raised to believe their parents, brothers or sisters had died? ...Told such white lies when in fact their family members or friends were still missing, possibly alive somewhere even now, enslaved and reduced to the sort of jabbering wreck that Talitha was?_

What was done to Uhuru's mother, would impact upon Uhuru, too. It would change the way she saw the world around her forever. Shepard imagined that by the time she reached an age to decide for herself what to do with her life, Uhuru might well be carrying almost as much baggage as she had at that age. Shepard earnestly wanted to make that burden easier in any way she could. One day Uhuru was going to have to reckon with her parents' past, and that would include Zaeed, to a certain extent. How those insights might affect the person she becomes might well well depend on what follows today's meeting of the two men who had loved her mother.

 _But Zaeed..._ Shepard sighed. Zaeed - how this could shape him going forwards - was a different matter entirely _. How do you fix a life so based on false truths, lies and manipulation as his has apparently been?_ Shepard's heart sank with the thought of things she was powerless to change. _Another quest for revenge? Is that really going to do him good? What will be left of Zaeed afterwards... once Vido is dead?_

She worried that this might actually break him. She remembered how not so very long ago she had found him in the cargo bay, drunken and very possibly edging towards suicidal – a thought, actually, that made her want to drop everything right now and go check on him out of sheer fear for it. There was just no way around it: she _cared_. Oh goddess she cared. She'd looked inside him and seen what he could be, and she couldn't let it go...

 _No._ She told herself. _Kind words are valued, especially when you know they are genuine and justified... and sympathy is sweet of course, too... but neither can make up for self-reckoning – the decisions you make about yourself that determine who you will become determine your fate. It's much harder to have faith in yourself especially when nobody else does, but in the end, when everything else is stripped away, that's all you ever have._

It almost broke her heart to hold back and accept that she could only be there for Zaeed if he reached out his hand for it, but she needed to bear in mind the fact that she couldn't force him to do that. Finally she signed off her shift and handed over to Miranda. All she was doing for Zaeed now was what she needed to do, to walk the fine line between duty and compassion, between wanting to help and allowing him the dignity of finding his own path.

 _That's what must be done._

 _S_ he told that herself sternly as she marched up the corridor...

...And was then shaking when upon arriving at the door, EDI informed her that Zaeed was _not_ in the Starboard Cargo Bay.

"Can you tell me his present location?" She asked with haggard breath, trying not to think of the last time she saw him unable to handle an emotional revelation about his past. _He_ _did_ _swear he had no more alcohol stashed away. He did. He swore..._

"Zaeed Massani is in the shuttle bay. Would you like me to open a com channel?"

"No EDI, thank you, I'll go down and see him." She rode the lift down, walked out onto the deck and felt no small amount of relief to hear sounds of life. The sound of a punch bag being battered into submission echoed across the bay, growing clearer as she approached. _Well... At least he's not holding it in the way that he was,_ she thought, and a little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

She tried to be sure her steps towards him were loud ones (not wanting to startle him) and waited a few steps back for him to finish. When he didn't stop she cleared her throat and waited again, just to be sure. Still he continued, the sweat flying off him with every stroke, and not one word. The slight but hopeful smile she had been wearing faded: perhaps he was ignoring her. Part of her _had_ been dreading the idea that maybe he was going to bring up the fact that _she_ had stopped him from killing Vido when he had the chance back on Zorya -

 _\- Stopped him because he set ablaze an entire refinery and endangered innocent lives... Lives which_ _I_ _then felt obliged to save because it had been one of_ _my_ _crew that had placed them in danger in the first place._ She shook her head. _If he's going down that route I am_ _not_ _going to give ground. Whether I pity him or not and even if I'm falling in love with him – I'll not spare his feelings for that. He brought that decision by me upon_ _himself_ _by lying about his true intentions and he damn well needs to learn from it.  
_

"Zaeed." She spoke in a tone loud enough to get attention. He threw one more punch - a hard one - and sent the bag swinging enough that he stopped to steady it. His jaw set with a grind of his teeth, then he wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head to clear it.

Between breaths he growled, still staring at the punch bag: "You ever given everything you have, only to have it thrown back in your face?"

Another strike, then another. Shepard folded her arms and studied her boots. She could have said yes. She could have said that giving all you've got – including your own life – only to come back from the dead two years later and find out what _that_ was worth, is not a feeling she'll soon forget. Instead she held her tongue. Getting into a pissing contest over 'who's had it harder' was never the way to make anyone feel better – _sharing_ experiences usually  did help, but right now he was the one who needed to be sharing, to get it out of his system – so she waited.

"Ever given everything to someone, only to find out they've been working you all along, using you..?" - Again between breaths, punctuated with another strike - a heavy one. He had to steady the bag again.

"In some ways, yes, but in others, no, I can't say that I have."

"That son of a bitch needs to die for what he's done." This time he launched a flurry of hits both punches and kicks. At the end of it, breathing hard, he added: " _Words..._ can't describe what that  bastard deserves."

Shepard nodded calmly: "I'm happy to say I think it's time we ended his career. I don't like loose cannons running around causing division and strife between people – we're going to have enough of that when the Reapers get here and I don't need him adding to it."

 _Damn it... do I_ _always_ _have to rationalise it in terms of 'the mission'? Can't I just say 'Yes Zaeed, I'm furious about what he did to you, we'll get him, OK?' – Why can't I do that?_ _It would probably make him feel better..._ _But that's exactly why I don't do it isn't it? Because I refuse to be the person who tells people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear and I have to be the person who does what they think is right, not what will ingratiate me to other people. But would it really hurt to do that, just once? Look at him..._

Shepard put an arm out and interrupted the hit he was about to make. As he stopped she stepped in and rested a hand on his shoulder, to add a special assurance:

"We'll get him. OK? Just..." She paused and squeezed his shoulder. "Remember: you can't undo anything that's happened. Revenge doesn't work like after he's dead you'll turn that anger in on yourself, and I don't want to see that happen."

"Maybe it doesn't work like that for you." He shrugged her hand off and turned back to face the bag, readying another punch. She stepped into it, caught it, and took a step closer.

" _Don't_ get in my way. You might get hurt." He turned his anger towards _her_ in that expression. There _was_ , of course, double meaning to his words.

"I do what I think is right, Zaeed." She wore first the stern expression that would remind him best of who was talking to him and of what she was capable, but then she relaxed and allowed her worry to show through:

"But I do it because I care." She stepped a little closer, close enough to feel his heat through her tunic. When he didn't back away she gladly added: "...And whatever happens I want you to know _I'm_ here for you." He was frowning, but the anger started to subside. She slid her had along the un-scarred side of his chin, and stroked his cheek with her thumb. He froze. She flinched when she saw it – the pain – and how he wouldn't look at her. _Shame?_ She took a stab at what she suspected he was thinking:

"It wasn't your fault, Zaeed."

"The Hell it wasn't." Still he wouldn't look at her, and his body shook in the absence of exertions recently ended.

She knew then what he was thinking: that it was his trusting Vido – someone who obviously should never have been trusted in the first place – that not only wrecked Zaeed's own life, but the lives of the people he could have loved as well. Uhuru should have been _his_ daughter, not Vladimir's, but for Zaeed having trusted the wrong person, and he was now blaming himself for the hardship that she and Alice had endured because of it.

Shepard took a deep breath, placed both hands on his shoulders, then levelled her eyes at him and spoke with the serious conviction she usually reserved for things like pep talking crew prior to suicidal missions onto Collector bases:

"Vido was a devious son of a bitch Zaeed. I get the impression he's quite adept at manipulation. That plus he's smart makes him doubly dangerous. But it also means you're choices weren't necessarily all your own – he _limited_ your choices – which means you're not responsible for all of them either."

"I _still_ should've seen it coming." Zaeed turned on his heel, paced away and stopped.

"You just chose the wrong person to trust." Shepard spoke to his back, "But could you really have known any better at the time? Did you even have any good examples of 'decent human beings' when you were growing up?"

Zaeed paced back to shake his fist in her direction with fury in his eyes : "Don't have to be a goddamn genius to know the difference for crying out loud. So why didn't I Shepard? Why didn't I fucking see it coming?"

Shepard shrugged: "Because you're more loyal and kind-hearted than you like to admit and that was part of the reason why you hung around him?"

"You mean I'm more goddamn foolish and fucking _stupid_ than I thought." The hatred returned, that fire ever-burning through cold eyes: " I trusted a man that kept me from the only woman I ever cared about, I _trusted_ a man who put a gun to my head and pulled the goddamn trigger! I trusted a man who left me for dead! Keep your fucking pity  and your ideals – they've done nothing but tear my life apart if what you say is true."

 _Translation: he figures if his judgement isn't sound, he should never have trusted_ _anyone_ _,_ _ever_ _._

He paced away two steps then spun around and yelled with a clenched fist... "God fucking DAMN the day I first laid eyes on her! God fucking damn the day I ever met her! I WISH I NEVER HAD!" – which then landed a punch onto the bag so hard that Shepard had to dodge out of the way of it looping back in her direction.

 _Translation: he cursed the day Alice had given him a glimpse of such things as what a 'good person' was worth and made him ponder wanting a different life. And here I am trying to do the same. S_ he wanted to yell ' _Damn it Zaeed you can trust_ _me_ _!'_ but bit her tongue, and tried a different line of reasoning.

"Except you survived and you're here now." _And you have me..._

She couldn't say that last part... Wouldn't demand that he trust her based on her being some prized reward for better behaviour. But she couldn't even angle it on the sensible grounds that her own reputation should at very least suggest he _should_ trust  her – she was too worried he'd start to question it if she brought it to his attention. Zaeed was just too was prone to distrust, probably thanks to a whole lot of decent reasons and supporting experience, the full details for which she was as yet still learning.

Zaeed stood still, having planted his feet somewhere the bag wouldn't swing to and set his gloved hands to his waist.

"And what's that worth, eh?"

He scoffed and stared at the tiled ceiling of the shuttle bay as if he were willing it to miraculously turn to black skies and torrential downpours. Shepard folded her arms and shook her head, leaning back on one leg.

"What Alice _showed_ you, Zaeed, Vido can't take away. Given how he treats people, I'd imagine you'd want to be less like him and more like her, not the other way around. He manipulates people like he's trying to control all variables. By blaming Alice for what that bastard did to you, you're only doing him a favour."

Maybe her present tactic worked. His shoulders slumped, and he slammed his back against the bulkhead in defeat, and slid down the wall to the floor. Shepard slowly covered the distance between them and crouched down beside him. There was a very long silence while she waited for him to say something - so long in fact that after a while she gave up and came and sat next to him, the cold of the metal sheeting apparent against her back even through three layers of clothing.

Eventually Zaeed stirred. "I looked out for him like he was my brother." He mumbled quietly, and Shepard pressed a hand to his knee and squeezed it gently. A little more silence passed between them before he added:

"Look what it cost me." She squeezed his knee again, releasing it so as to turn and kneel against his thigh, with her body facing him as he stared off across the bay.

"Look what it cost... _her_..." He added, staring off again, "She had a daughter and I never even _knew_. All this time... I even feel sorry for Vladimir, cowardly bastard that he is..." He sighed as he set his jaw to one side, and smacked his head back into the bulkhead as he added:

"All that because _I_ trusted Vido."

"But revenge won't put that right. You go hunt him down looking for revenge and you will miss the point, the opportunity you've just been given."

"Opportunity?! What fucking _opportunity_?!" Well. At least that got his attention focused on her. He looked at her incredulously and like he might be about to thump her one for making such a nonsensical statement.

"To set things right. To cut the ties between him and Alice's family, to make sure Vladimir has enough money to keep Uhuru safe, to give that little girl a _future_."

Slowly that sunk in and he nodded. "I guess I can't put anything _else_ right, might as well try and do that." He shrugged. Not really how she wanted to help him to see it, but it was a start.

"You _can_ make a difference. But you're going to have to be sure that _that_ is your focus –  not revenge." She reached for his forearm and squeezed as she earnestly tried to explain:

"Zaeed: a person's reasons for _why_ they are doing something, affect _how_ they do it, and  that in turn always affects the end result. Set the wrong priorities at the beginning, and you will likely come to regret it in hindsight when you see the results." He looked at her as if he wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't just speaking gibberish.

"Breaking Vido's neck would solve a lot of problems." He scowled.

"Yes. It would." She let go of his arm and nodded. "And that's the way to think of it. But don't let him make you lose anything _else_ for sake of being rid of him."

It was a strong but sour piece of advice, a sober warning. One given without spelling out the reminder that if he hadn't spent twenty years focused on Vido, he might have pondered other things enough to find Alice before she died and end Vido's involvement in her life long ago. Shepard then added, in a darker, sharper tone:

"I'd also not put him past acts of spite, Zaeed. You might get him in the end, but he might find a way to make it cost you."

"How on god's green earth could he possibly cost me more than he already has?!" He snarled as he yelled - the voice of vengeance dripping with venom between his gritted teeth. Shepard retracted her hand from his arm and levelled a very sober, dark stare at him:

"Perhaps it can't... but you never know what you have to lose until you lose it. You, of all people, already know _that_."

Zaeed _did_ seem to take her words in and think that piece of advice over. Finally he took the hit and buckled. He crumpled into his hands, grimacing as if he'd just seen a flash-bang go off in front of him. She could see his eyes were scrunched up as hard as they could be.

For a moment, she wasn't sure whether he was going to leap to some killing spree of inanimate objects scattered about the shuttle bay on a rampage of destruction, or burst into tears. Instead he just spent the longest time unmoving. She drew her hand towards him again and this time hooked her fingers under his, prying one gloved hand from his face. For just a moment he looked at her, that gut-wrenching agony painted across his face... Like that first time he talked to her about Alice and how he found out about her still being alive all those years, but died just short of him finding her. He looked away and recovered his frown, his shoulders slumped and he relaxed both arms about his knees and stared at the floor.

Eventually he shrugged and acknowledged her words: "... Yeah."

He pulled off one boxing glove and then the other, then started to fiddle and pull at the bandages he'd had on underneath. He started to unravel them, meticulous and slow, as if their unravelling held some metaphorical meaning.

"You've got a chance to get more than revenge out of this." Shepard placed a hand on his knee, he paused for thought then with a still partially bandaged hand, bruises showing through, he took hers in his. She smiled when she felt him rubbing her fingers between his and for a moment he studied them as if they somehow held all the answers to fixing his broken life. Then something snapped and he loosed her hand.

"She's not _my_ child, Shepard."

Not even a shrug, just words spoken ever so quietly, like dark shapes shifting under the surface of an abyssal plane – a sea into which Zaeed poured all the thoughts he dared not even dream about. There was a sense of mourning, of things that _could_ have been but at the same time could _never_ have been – a sense that there were some things in life he would never have, never be, and never live to see.

Shepard could appreciate that. She'd never told anyone about it, but being a parent was one of the things she'd thought about whilst she'd floated away from the Normandy's burning carcass. She thought of that – of all things - in the closing cold of space above an icy dead world, oxygen gushing out of her damaged suit like blood from a major artery. Not 'having a baby'. Not 'being pregnant'... Shepard had thought about 'being a parent' - being the one to pass on knowledge and wisdom, and help to guide the development of a young mind into an adult one that knew its capabilities, understood the world around it much as it were able to, and who took responsibility for choices that it made - choices made to the best of its abilities.

Shepard had dreamed of being able to bring out the best in someone, but to do that not in some chance meeting there and then gone, or some temporary position as teacher, or the fixing of an adult mind warped by a bitter life... but to invest more time in that one individual and helping them than Shepard had ever invested in any _one_ person. To _give_ of herself to that  one little person the same devotion, effort and self-application that she had poured into her career and the protection of the entire galaxy in all the years before that moment. To give that much of herself but for one little life as yet unimportant in the grand scheme of things, for once. That was what she had wanted. It was amongst the things that occurred to her when it suddenly hit her she might not be coming back. She shuddered at the memory and forced herself to focus on here and now, because the truth was that _that_ dream was no closer now than it had been when she lay adrift and waiting for death...

"No... She's not your child, and she never will be." She paused, smiled and winked: "But you might make a good uncle."

He chuckled at that, at very least, and looking up at her for a moment he almost wore a smile... But his face contorted and settled, once again sober:

"Honestly... I wouldn't know how to be..."

Shepard smiled her broadest, smug, smile... moved her hand back into his, and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze:

"Well, you _start_ by  finding that heart of yours and opening it up. You _start_ by caring about what happens to _her_." There was a very long pause, and he truly seemed to take time to think about that, his face changing as different thoughts passed in front of his eyes. Eventually he let out a long, tired sigh.

"Alright. But I'm still going to tear that bastard a new arsehole with my bare hands and set him on fire after I get a hold of him."

Shepard laughed then stopped herself. She wasn't entirely sure that he was joking.

"As long as I don't have to watch." She joked, and sincerely hoped he wasn't being serious. He huffed – as close a thing to a chuckle as she was going to get from him about that. Perhaps he planned far worse. She tried not to think about that right now.

"C'mon it's cold – let's get out of here. If you're done beating that punch bag into it's next incarnation, that is." She stood, and offered him a hand.

"Yeah. I'm done." He reached for her hand. She pulled him up and half-smiled as he miss-stepped. Clearly so tired from his exertions, he nearly lost his balance and in compensating, ended that step a little closer to her than planned. He would have nigh on bowled her over if she hadn't caught him. She steadied him as he righted himself. Their (apparent) height difference was less marked when he wasn't wearing armoured boots, despite her being in her usual on-duty, thin-soled, polished leather shoes. He frowned, then stared into her eyes with yet another of those hard-to-read expressions. He touched her cheek, gently, his lips parted as if to say something... But he clamped them shut again, then ducked off to secure the gloves back inside their locker.

Returning to her, they walked to the lift side by side. She pressed the button for her cabin.

"I... understand if you want to be alone." She ventured, giving the him space by staring at the door as she stood next to him. She'd tried not to sound like she was implying that was what she thought he needed – she just wanted him to know he would have it if he needed it. Zaeed leaned against the wall of the lift and the doors closed, his having neglected to input any instructions to the lift himself:

"I think I've spent enough time alone."

Shepard looked at him and wondered at the possibility of double meaning there, referring to his long hours doing gym workouts over the course of her shift, referring on the other hand perhaps to his entire life. If Vido never _was_ a friend to Zaeed, then Zaeed may well have spent a very, very long time alone or rather much worse: in the company of someone who not only treated him with contempt, but manipulated him for their own goals and personal amusement. She reached for his shoulder with a sidewards glance and a slight, worried smile. He reached up, taking her fingers in his and squeezing them. He didn't speak, only eyed her with a worn expression.

Relinquishing her hand as they both stepped out onto her private deck, he rubbed his eyes and combed his fingers through his hair:

"Urgh... I could do with a shower and a change of clothes..." His not-so-white-anymore vest vouched for both those things. It wasn't clear if this was him excusing himself or pondering only a temporary absence to do just that.

"Feel free to use my shower if you like." Shepard offered with a shrug. "I'll leave the door unlocked if you want to use it – you could fetch a change of clothes first, then come back. If you change your mind and decide you do want to be alone after all, that's fine too. It's entirely up to you – whatever you need." She said, pressing the door for entry to her cabin.

"...Thanks." He said, turning to go back to the lift with 'tired and weary' in his steps. With a slight wave of his arm with as he walked with his back to her, he added:

"See you in a bit."

He _would_ be back, then. At least she was beginning to understand: Zaeed was a man who was true to his word, if nothing else.

* * *

REFERENCES:

Song reference in chapter title although you'd never know it unless I pointed it out: "Caught A Lite Sneeze" by Tori Amos.

" _He scoffed and stared at the tiled ceiling of the shuttle bay as if he were willing it to miraculously turn to black skies and torrential downpours. Shepard folded her arms and shook her head, leaning back on one leg."_ – This line is to honour a piece of fanart "Zaeed Massani – Hurt" by RabbitZoro on Deviant Art, inspired by Jonny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt". It just fit perfectly to my story. Perhaps if you google 'Zaeed-Massani-hurt-297240520' you may get lucky and find it if DA gives you trouble.


	5. Chapter 5 - Down To Business

~ Finding The Heart ~

Down To Business

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Zaeed showered when he returned - no request for company... which was a sure sign that today's revelations had really gotten under his skin. There were other signs: all day there had been no offerings of war stories, no expressions of sexual interest at all. On its own _that_ screamed of tension, even if his face had not betrayed it. He'd been  quiet ever since walking into her quarters which only warned her all the more that a firestorm of a spite, anger and resentment surely brewed within. She also knew the scowl he wore presently, despite not yet having laid eyes on his face.

Yet despite every indication of his being antisocial at this time, he had decided to come _here_ to shower. " _I think I've spent enough time alone" -_ was what he'd said and (as per usual) Shepard was left pondering the multiple and interchangeable interpretations for his words. Did he mean to cite a lifetime spent almost entirely in the company of treachery? Or did he mean to refer instead to the loneliness of his own self-imposed solitude, for all the many years since? Or was it merely a comment regarding the hours he'd recently spent alone whilst she took her shift on duty? It was equally possible that all these interpretations applied.

Shepard had already showered in the time it took Zaeed to fetch his change of clothes and his own towel (his _own_ towel – he'd gotten quite particular about that). Seizing the opportunity to get some work done (and be occupied by it instead of worrying about him), Shepard presently sat surrounded by her models, busily tapping away at her console. Not a word or glance between them passed when he entered her cabin - he had headed straight for the bathroom. She had continued to keep her back to the bathroom door as she heard him emerge, deciding instead to wait and see how he would - if he wanted to - open up a conversation, glad for once to have things else to busy herself with.

Eventually the silence got the better of her. She turned just enough to spy him standing with his back to her staring into the fish tank, legs shoulder-width apart and naked but for the tattoos on his arm and across his shoulders and the scars that abounded over his body. He stood drying himself with the towel he'd brought with methodical, slow, thoroughness. She cursed the part of her brain that decided in that moment to inappropriately note she liked the view and politely turned back to her console, ignoring the fact that his reflection happened to be partially visible on the glossy screen of her terminal.

She knew well how appealing that fish tank and its occupants could be to a troubled mind. It was why they were here in the first place. Shepard had done what he was doing now, many times herself. There was something oddly soothing about watching the tanks inhabitants swimming about that could offer peace when nothing else could. She took the last sip of her now-rather-too-cold tea and set the mug down to resume typing.

She heard him step towards the table just behind her on her left, where he'd piled the clothes he'd brought to wear in a neat heap. He hung the towel about his neck, fished out the pair of boxers he'd brought, then put them on. A few lumbering footsteps and he was leaning over her, one hand on the back of her chair, the other braced against the worksurface. She wasn't working on anything she didn't mind him seeing so she stopped and looked up at him expectantly, trying to strike an expression somewhere between pleasant and sober.

"Better?" She asked. His face ticked a snarl before settling on a plain hard stare at the screen of her console. Quietly he answered:

"Not as much as I will be when I drag Vido's gods-forsaken sorry arse into the nearest airlock and nail that lying-bastard-tongue of his to the floor as I open the doors to hard vacuum," Then allowing his face to relax to cold sobriety and a flick of raised eyebrows: "...but the shower helped."

Shepard raised her eyebrows as she envisioned Vido meeting such an end, staring off towards a dark corner of the floor. It presented some small amusement... until she realised Zaeed might actually do that should he lay hands on the man. She drew a breath and let it go, then changed the subject.

"I've been looking over preliminary logistics. It's not going to be easy."

"Damned right it isn't." Zaeed sneered a smile, "But lucky for us I've got twenty years experience chasing this bastard - and this time I'll go to hell before I let him get away again."

With that, it began: the actual planning of Vido's demise.

Vladimir expected Vido to be present at the next Blue Sun's visit to his farm - being quite often present for such occasions. Back-up plans were laid should he flee and a need to then give chase. They planned out what resistance they might expect and what to be prepared for, and the sorts of places he'd flee to if they didn't scoop him up there and then or if he wasn't amongst the group that came to Vladimir's door.

At least planning seemed to calm Zaeed down - Shepard imagined that it helped restore a dire need for a sense of control. One could understand how he might feel he lacked that over his life in light of recent revelations. In the meantime, she was learning to appreciate that he was actually quite a bit smarter than he was generally given credit for when it came to hard strategy.

"What's the matter – you surprised I'm such a crafty old bugger?" He barely half-smiled, his concentration still firmly focused on her terminal. "Stick around love you ain't seen nothin' yet." He remarked, then added: "See that there? That's a containment vessel but a badly labelled one. My guess is that's someone shipping Hydrogen gas cheaply and under the radar from Alva for use in artificial fertilisers as a by-product from Deuterium extraction."

He continued: "That stuff's banned on quite a few garden worlds 'cuz of environmental issues related to the native habitats. That's something Vido got into because it's easy cash. Mark my words though – that shit's dangerous." His eyes half-lidded with a cheerful sneer:

"Helluva mess we had this once when this underage couple of kids decided one of our cargo bays'd be a good place to fuck under their parent's radar. Picked the wrong containers to shag against. They must have been rocking it pretty hard cuz it blew and sent the pair of them smashing into the ceiling in a ball of flames. Should've sent the security cam footage to the local schools – would've been great educational material."

He smiled properly for the first time in almost a day when he saw that tickle Shepard's humour. "...Anyway you don't want to be standing anyone but an enemy next to one of _those_."

They planned and plotted until the dampness of his tattooed shoulders and wet-spiked hair had dried and the white towel hanging absent-mindedly around his neck began to smell something awful. Shepard pointed out the latter when she caught the whiff of it, and told him to chuck it in the dirty laundry bin before she threw him back in the shower for a re-clean along with it. It was time for a break, and she then went about getting some snacks and much needed coffee.

Upon her return and having sat back down, she realised what a tricky business this was going to be to pull off. Once the trap was sprung they would need to take it to its final conclusion quickly, because as lord-of-vengeance as Zaeed was wont to be, Vido was a crafty old vindictive bugger himself, and one keen on 'setting examples' and 'sending messages'. He was also fast – but at least this time Zaeed had something to beat him with on that point: there was supposedly no ship in the galaxy better than the Normandy for speed, stealth and weapons – or at least not when comparing the overall combination of all three. But the Normandy _was_ just one ship and Vido would have a lot more than that. They had to be sure they could pull it off and wipe out both him _and_ his most loyal forces, else Vido was one problem that surely  would resurface – likely at a time of his choosing with clear advantage – and bite them in the ass. _Can't be having that._

They went over maps of the layout of the farm and the docks the Blue Suns cargo ship had used to date in the most local town. They determined how their quarry might travel from there to the farm and back again, how long those journeys might take, where they could be intercepted, and where the Normandy would need to wait to get an idea of where they might jump to if they managed to escape the planet (and where EDI would need to listen out for news of ship movements). All this was done in-between Shepard barking orders to the crew dictating tasks for them to do to make preparations and gather intelligence to narrow down their options, give them better intel and ground to pull the whole thing off. By this point the crew – all of them – would know Shepard was up to _something_...But until she was convinced she could pull it off, she wouldn't disclose the mission to anyone else.

She would give it maybe another hour of planning before she'd dictate to Zaeed that they both get some sleep. _Sleep. Huh._ Her subconscious had a habit of working over problems and plans as she slept. On one hand this meant Shepard could apply a level of focus to a mission that few could. Flip-side: her dreams were rarely peaceful. Not that they could be anything else really, given what she'd been through in life already. The thought of having to set foot on Mindoir in a familiar setting was enough to make her shudder in advance of the nightmares she expected tonight... But she was getting tired now - tired enough to need to shake her head to clear such thoughts.

There were of course weapons to consider as well as directions to give to Vladimir for himself and Uhuru. She arranged a meeting for eight hours time when she hoped to collect ideas from everyone else who was going to be involved, to explain to them why this was a task that needed to be done, and to break the news to them that it had to be done in less than three days time.

Over that last hour they tried to cover every scenario they could think of (at least before input from anyone else), where a role in executing the plan could be achieved by more than one squad member. In the best version they could come up with, Thane would be given stealth bodyguard duties, expected to hide and wait observing the situation and be there to take down anyone or anything that came after Vladimir and Uhuru if things went wrong. Up until that looked likely, he would be a spotter alongside Garrus. Garrus would take up a sniping position and be the primary spotter, but Kasumi would be running silent as an infiltrator, to trace where Vido might go without engaging him if he should run.

Shepard ruled that _she_ would do the talking if there was any to be done with Vido, _Zaeed_ would have to stay out of sight unless another gun was desperately needed – one whiff of Zaeed and Vido might just perform a vanishing act. She was going to have Kasumi (and EDI) plant certain legitimate ties between her former friend's family farm and the land that Vladimir held, with of course Shepard playing the predictable paragon who might find out how Vladimir was being extorted by the Blue Suns and might, consequently, offer herself up as help to his cause.

Her hope was to lull Vido into a false sense of security – Shepard's reputation was one of reasonableness, not ruthlessness, after all. Thinking that she might be bargained with, that allowing Vladimir to be free from Blue Suns intimidation for the long term future was a bargaining chip that would settle the score with her, he might not be so concerned about running into _her_. He had already witnessed first-hand how she put civilians before Zaeed's quest for revenge and had not chased him down afterward. She would, if pressed, confess that she had _"left Zaeed behind"_ so as to not be concerned with him shooting Vido before she had a chance to discuss matters with him. She smiled at the deception and imagined the look on Vido's face when he realised he'd done enough damage in the galaxy to bring out even _her_ renegade streak - and in so doing: bring about his impending doom.

Vido had been slippery when one blood-thirsty ex-mercenary-turned-bounty-hunter had been hunting him down, but he had never been hunted by a SpecTRe before, let alone one with loyal and accomplished crew with a variety of skill-sets that put her team a cut above any other in the galaxy (or so she liked to believe) to help her hunt him. Once the directive was set, together they would do what was necessary in order to bring his nasty little life to an swift but unpleasant end. He had no idea what was coming, and that gave her a small amount of satisfaction, something she hoped Zaeed could share.

She'd take Grunt for back-up because being Krogan he was expected to be slow and dumb yet being anything but that in reality: sharp reactions of a young adult, wit and strategy of a considerably centuries-older individual. He'd had just over a year's training with Shepard to help him start piecing together the memories of Krogan warlords (given to him as part of the cloning process) into coherent wisdom he could apply to reality. In that time he'd also had the opportunity to pick up some of Shepard's unique ways of doing things. _Actually It's quite frightening sometimes – how quickly he's learning._

Samara was to be her second visible team-mate – her personal bodyguard as had by now become legend amongst Asari throughout the galaxy. Her presence would almost certainly make any Asari under the employ of the Blue Suns flinch, pondering the value of loyalty versus facing down a Justicar and her Code.

Miranda was to stay on board the Normandy and oversee all operations – she was particularly good at that kind of multi-tasking. Tali would be making sure everyone was kitted out as required and that the ship was in tip top condition for a chase. Mordin – the fastest brain on the ship – would be running strategy-master with Miranda, performing calculations and making predictions and extrapolations to cover all bases. He'd be monitoring all comms chatter and videofeeds for docking areas. With EDI's help he'd be picking out keywords, images and topics of interest on civilian, military, law enforcement and commercial security frequencies. EDI would be checking for anything outside of those bandwidths and communication formats wherever possible too – if they were detectable she would find them and bring them to his attention. Joker would be keeping a more general eye on things and paying special attention to videofeeds and comms between team members.

Jack was being kept on ship in reserve for the chase, if there was to be one. Shepard was going to brief her about the situation in the morning, what Uhuru's mother was put through, and make sure she saw a picture of little Uhuru. With that in hand, she was pretty sure she could set Jack on a murderous rampage as good as a point-and-click missile target-locked to Vido's location. Jack liked to pretend she didn't care about an awful lot of things, but Shepard was pretty certain with a little careful prodding that Jack _would_ care about Uhuru... A child robbed of her mother because 'the system' had let her down. In all these years, no law enforcement agency ever put a stop to Vido's actions, or held him accountable for them. A little girl who with their help – _her_ help – stood the chance of having a 'normal' life.

Jacob was going to be in charge of weapons load outs and making sure they had a smooth changeover if it came to a chase. He was also the best thinker when it came to naval strategies, having been a Corsair. He knew the sorts of places Vido might go to flee, from the position of someone who might hunt him down with a ship of their own – he'd had many run-ins with the Blue Suns during his time as an Alliance Corsair and working for the Illusive Man. He had therefore an alternative viewpoint to add when it came to hunting them down – a good back up in case the ship for any reason got separated from the main landing party and Zaeed's experience and knowledge of the Blue Suns with them.

"OK, that's it."

Shepard put down the stylus and the pad she'd been working on onto the coffee table where they'd migrated to for the last half hour. She let out an exhausted sigh:

"That's all we can do for now. We'll talk to the crew and Vladimir tomorrow, and see about arranging this little party. Right now though, we both need rest."

Zaeed just yawned. The pair of them had red-rimmed eyes with shadows growing in the sockets. "Ughn..." Zaeed sighed, and leaned back into the corner of the sofa, stretching his arms behind his head and lifting booted feet onto the coffee table. Shepard _really_ wished she could get him out of that habit, but it had been hard enough to get him to stop wearing his armour like a second skin. She tried not to grumble and settled down next to him, taking the invitation she presumed to be there, resting her head on his chest. She lay there a while, quiet, until she found her eyes closing.

She stopped herself before she nodded off, patted him gently on the chest and rose unsteadily to her feet. "Hey. sleep. In a bed. Else we'll be sorry for it."

Zaeed took a moment then began to stir. "...Yeah." She felt bad then – it seems he'd almost been asleep himself. Maybe he had been. Having so much on his mind, sleep probably wouldn't come easy - she might have just robbed him of the only chance he might have had to have it. Nonetheless, waking up an hour later crooked and sore still wasn't a good idea, and doubtless if she'd got up to climb into bed herself she'd have awoken him anyway. He jerked upwards to sit up straight and rubbed his eyes. They took turns in the bathroom, Shepard was second. Emerging from the bathroom in her underwear, Shepard found Zaeed stood stone still, staring off into space (both real and metaphorically) through the window in the ceiling of her cabin.

She knew that look. She'd seen it in her own reflection enough times, stood in the same place. She knew a thousand thoughts were trying to sort themselves out in Zaeed's mind. She _also_ knew that asking about what he was thinking would only mean neither of them got any sleep. As a soldier you're taught well when to set aside whatever is bothering you to focus on whatever problem is at hand, and this was one of those times when that skill was needed. She walked towards him and then, stopping just behind him, put her hands on his arms just above the elbows. With a little force and taking advantage of his surprise, she turned him about and then (when he didn't follow her subtle guidance) gently shoved him in the direction of the bed.

"Hey!" He turned to glare at her.

"No glaring. No thinking. Sleep. Now. That's an order." He opened his mouth to say something as she yanked the covers off, but she held them out wide with her arms and shooed him with them towards the bed.

"Go on. Get." She barked, "My cabin. My rules. I'd talk to you for hours if we didn't have a job we need to do tomorrow but we do, so let's get the sleep we need to pull it off." He pulled a funny face that transitioned between confusion, irritation, followed by suspicion that he was dealing with a nutcase, then finally the suspicion that she was probably right. He looked at her a moment and smiled the slightest smile with puppy-dog eyes before quickly adapting that to a smirk:

"You're damned cute when you're bossy."

Usually that would sound like he was horny, but the way he said it and the expression he wore suggested he was actually trying to say thank you. Shepard half-smirked in acknowledgement, then shooed him with the bedclothes again.

"I mean it. Get. We both need sleep if we're going to pull this thing off." She recovered her composure and tried her best not to look mad (or sexy - just in case), or cute, but just tired and sensible.

"Alright alright... I'm going." He said, climbing onto the bed and collapsing as Shepard threw the covers over him and climbed into bed herself. She snuggled up to him, lying on her left with him behind her making sure he put his arm around her (she grabbed his hand and took it with her so he didn't get a choice). Too tired to argue, too grateful for having one person in the galaxy who seemed to want him around, he hugged her and let himself cling to that thought above all others as they both drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6 - Thorns

~ Finding The Heart ~

Thorns

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Sober eyes stared at Shepard from around the briefing room's dark, reflective table. She hesitated and worried in that slight pause - before heads started to nod ever so slightly. There was an awkwardness present - a slight embarrassment, perhaps, at personal matters laid bare of a certain individual who presently sat glowering in the corner of the room.

Everyone had remained stoically tight-lipped and expressionless throughout the brief analysis of Blue Suns activities she provided. She had, in due course, revealed the truth behind Zaeed's still-in-recent-memory violent outbursts and erratic antisocial behaviour. She'd told them about Vido's continuing personal persecution of the family of the woman Zaeed had loved, and she'd told them how lay in the balance of it all: one little girl's future.

They had taken it all in without comment, and face remained composed... But then nobody sane would voice pity, not whilst they were within view or earshot of _that_ glowering presence.

"So. That's what I'm putting forward as motive. My suggested action: I think it's time we took down _Vido_ and gave the Blue Suns a good reason to rethink their main focus of operations - which has been nothing good until now. Either they become an organisation that can stand at our sides against the Reapers, or we make certain at very least they will _not_ get in our way."

She nodded in Jacob's direction: "The Alliance has long found cause to gripe about the Blue Suns and failed to do much about them." She looked to Miranda next: "Cerberus for all their ills at least _had_ a socially beneficial objective, albeit for just one species. The Blue Suns on the contrary just seem bent on chaos."

She twitched her head over her shoulder toward that glowering presence seated behind her, but did not look.

"Zaeed might've had his own personal vendetta, but for me the more I think on it: the more I think the Blue Suns are contributing to anything but galactic cohesion... And there's going to come a time, very soon, when the Reapers come and the galaxy simply cannot afford the likes of _Vido Santiago_."

She glanced across the room and met every face before adding: "That said... We're not under the Alliance, Council or Cerberus anymore, no missions come from them. No oath or bond ties you into following my orders, you know that. That means any action we take has to be a team decision. So I want to hear _your_ opinions: if you think this is a loose end worth tying up-" _before I scatter most of you to other ports, turning myself and this ship over to the Alliance..._ "- then we do it."

Surprisingly, Jack was the first to pitch in: "Point me at the bastard." and the whole room breathed a quiet sigh of relief, as if all had been holding their breaths.

Garrus was next: "It'll be just like the good old days chasing Saren. I'd forgotten how _fun_ that was." With a shake of his head which Shepard knew really meant his agreement - confirmed when he added: "Sure. Why not?"

With pursed lips Shepard smiled through half-lidded eyes at that. _Good old days._ Then she thought across the table to him with a frown: _You crazy impetuous hothead [of an old bastard]_. He ducked his head a little in that predatory fashion he had and looked at her sideways – sure as rain falls on Surkesh: he'd caught that thought. Old joke, now modified. Tali knew too - she'd looked at Garrus and chuckled, and behind that purple visor Shepard was sure she was grinning like an idiot.

Half a second later and Tali had caught her glance with half-lidded eyes. There was a subtle slide in Garrus' direction then back to her. _I see what you did there..._ was what that meant. Not the old joke - that was a new one just between the two of them: Gone were the days of Garrus' ever-eager _"Yes Shepard, right Shepard, anything you say, Shepard!"_ attitude. Tali noticed, and Tali approved, crediting Shepard for no small part in that transformation. The rest of the crew were none the wiser to those silent exchanges, save possibly the one sitting in the Normandy's cockpit, watching them all on vid.

Shepard looked up, wondering who would be next to contribute an opinion. Jacob was the first. He stood up and leaned forward, palms down, arms apart on the table:

"One of the most frustrating things I ever had to do as a Corsair was to walk away from taking down the Blue Suns. Had my hands so tied up with red tape that Vido Santiago got away with a lot of shit over the years. Hell yeah I'd love to tear him a him a new one if I got the chance. _Bastard's_ got it coming."

That was a stronger endorsement than Shepard had expected. A flash of dark eyes under a seemingly perpetual scowl towards her evidenced that Jacob clearly had his _own_ reasons for wanting a piece of Vido's hide.

On her left, Legion's [eyebrows?!] had been flicking in that agitated way they did when he [it? They?!] ran simulations or permutation calculations – or did whatever it was that a thousand plus mechanised souls _do_ in that strange, composite vessel which seemed oddly intent on following her around the galaxy. After a brief pause it/they chipped in:

"Organics are diverse. It offers you many strengths but it is also the greatest weakness you have that the Reapers will most likely seek to exploit. Diversity leads to division and that is something they can exacerbate through use of destabilising agents. Whether there are any connections between the Blue Suns and the Reapers is irrelevant: we have reviewed Blue Suns activities alongside activities by other non-governmental groups and found them to be significant destabilising factor in galactic peace."

Everyone in the room sat/stood up straight upon hearing _that_ endorsement, because Legion was known to be un-swayed by emotional bias or loyalty. Even Shepard was surprised to hear him/them jump on board so readily this time, and raised her eyebrows about as high as everyone else did as Legion continued:

"The Terminus Systems have the greatest political destabilisation potential. The Blood Pack base their operations on there being a need for their services, arising due to political instability and internal distrust within larger organisations. The Eclipse take advantage of political instability for their smuggling operations and for their more general criminal activity in the absence of reliable and organised law enforcement institutions. The majority of criminal and terrorist organisations advantage from political instability. Yet of the most powerful non-governmental organisations that operate in that area, Cerberus has the greatest potential but the Blue Suns are the most active in contributing to the political destabilisation that all subsequently benefit from. I quote a communication from Vido Santiago:"

The voice of Vido originating from Legion was bizarre and quite surreal in its suddenness and Shepard felt a twitch of movement from the shadow that lurked behind her as it began:

 _"If we can create two paying customers out of one, we get twice the work and twice the pay."_ Eyebrows rose around the room. Legion continued then in it's own moderate, synthesised voice:

"The Blue Suns under the direction of Vido Santigo have many times positioned themselves as middle-men operatives. Vido has been actively playing opposing sides against each other, sometimes creating conflict through misinformation and threats where there had previously been an uneasy peace, or where co-operative stability amongst powers in the Terminus Systems may otherwise have been fostered. As has been popularised by much of Organic literature: war is good for business."

In the stunned silence that followed, Shepard managed to muster a "Thank you, Legion." before once again looking around the room to gather opinions. Heads began to nod reassuringly.

"Difficult, but may be achievable. Will be running simulations if anyone needs me." – That was Mordin. He was quickly up and gone, having clearly decided that Legion's input would be enough to sway the rest of the crew, meaning work was imminent even if Shepard hadn't dictated it yet. Mordin never wasted time 'talking' when he could be 'doing'. The rest of the team meanwhile began talking amongst themselves.

"I'll contact the Illusive Man right away and explain the merits. Maybe I can get a few of his resources on our side for this one." Nodded Miranda, and she went off to do just that with a swagger in her step. Considering Miranda's pride and her fear of cages, she carried herself with the utmost professionalism despite having to renew relations with her former employer in order to encourage his support of their activities.

"My Code is your Code as always, Shepard." Nodded Samara and left, presumably for meditation.

"Kid's cute." Kasumi said with a tip of her head to one side, smoothly turning upwards a palm from folded arms as she slouched against the wall. " _Definitely_ deserves a better start in life than having some lowlife like _Vido_ taking her father's every penny in protection money. That money should have been spent on _her_."

Tali, who'd set her back against the wall next to Kasumi (the two had become surprisingly good friends over the time Kasumi had been aboard), nodded in agreement. Thane, who lurked in the shadowy corner a little ways away from the pair of them stood up straight with his hands tucked behind his back, looked in Kasumi's direction and nodded. Then turning toward Shepard, he spoke:

"Children should be permitted their innocence. That... regrettably... is all too easily broken by the selfish intentions of adults. I will see to it that the child and her father are safe." He ducked his head in a slight bow. It was his unspoken but frequently referenced 'thank you' for Shepard's help in changing the direction of his own son's life, who - having had _his_ innocence robbed by the death of _his_ mother – had nearly turned down a very dark path indeed. Perhaps he saw some similarity between Uhuru and his son, albeit with the painful exception that Uhuru's father was managing in the aftermath to do what Thane could not: be a father to his child. He turned to leave, picking up Kasumi as he did so, in order to go begin work on their combined duties.

Tali waved as she too turned to leave: "You know you can always count me in, Shepard." And with that, she was gone.

Grunt had been very quiet – he had watched and listened throughout the whole meeting and, with a certain level of curiosity, undoubtedly observed how all team members had fallen into line on this proposal. Shepard had to remind herself that he was neither child nor adult but an unnatural mix of the two. Even if by physique and schooling he was the latter, set in the context of the longevity of Krogan that don't meet an untimely end, he was actually even _more_ youthful than the bright, shy and sweet [century-or-so old] Liara when they first met on Therum. But then in his mind he also held the strategies of warlords.

More to the point: what he learned on _this_ ship, with _this_ crew, and from being in the company of Shepard, he would be putting to use _loooooong_ after Shepard's bones were turned to ash. Her strategies, her motives, her leadership skills... These are things he would remember, and maybe one day use. Sometimes, she wasn't at all sure if that was a good or a bad thing. He lingered now, last of the troupe, patiently waiting until Shepard's eyes fell on _him_ , arms folded, leaning with his hump against the wall. When she glanced his way, his eyes met hers and he grinned a grin full of teeth and bloodlust:

" _Finally_ – a  good fight." He pushed off the wall and left.

 _If you are worthy of command, prove your worth and try to destroy me_ – she still recalled his first words to her, later followed up with: _If I find a clan ... I will be honoured to eventually pit them against you..._ He was going to be very dangerous someday, but he might by then reach Wrex's level of understanding of the universe. In which case, if the Reaper war lasted more than Shepard's own lifetime, this towering Krogan might just become then the Galaxy's best hope for survival. She smiled as she thought to the Reapers: _A little gift to you, long may he keep you busy._

" _So how'd it go?"_ – Joker's bodiless voice enquired. EDI had already contributed information to Shepard's briefing, andhe'd known the simple version of the mission before the meeting even started (of course).

"I think everyone's onboard." Shepard rested her hands on her hips.

" _Told you they would be."_

Shepard smiled. "Best get to it then."

 _"Aye commander."_ – and with that he was gone too.

There was only one other presence remaining - a _remarkably_ quiet, red and black shadow. Zaeed was sitting with his elbows on his knees, propping up his head with fingers clamped together across his mouth as if he'd had to use physical force to hold back the words in his thoughts from gushing out during the meeting. She turned to face him:

"Looks like you're going to wind up having the entire crew behind you on this one. I hope you appreciate what that means." She smiled openly, he looked up at her quizzically, still silent so she added in explanation with a shrug: "You're _one of us_ , now." Doubtful eyes looked up at her, but there was the slightest hint of hope.

"You saying I wasn't before?" A scowl then – quick cover-up.

Shepard pulled a face. "You saying you were? You saying it wasn't just a job, or that it wasn't just because at the time you had nothing better to be off doing?"

"..." Silence then for a moment. "Alright, you made your point." He was still scowling though.

"My _point_ is that they wouldn't be doing this if they didn't see more merit in it than just getting rid of some trouble-maker mercenary and his band of merry men. Garrus sure as hell wouldn't back that alone, he was there at Zorya – remember? If anyone distrusts you, it's him. That he's willing to do this means you've made it matter to _him_ and you didn't do that by deception, you did it by telling the truth about yourself. That's a hell of a lot more potent."

"And my dating you has nothing to do with it. Anyone told you you're soft in the head?" Sharp, dichromatic eyes caught the light as they looked in her direction.

"Yes: Garrus as a matter of fact – or words to that effect - funnily enough when I told him we were dating."

Zaeed opened his mouth in some mild indignation but she cut him off with a smile and added:

"He seems to think I'm a sucker for hard luck stories... Oh and that I've got a thing for scars." She winked, putting a swing in her step as she turned to stroll towards the door, stopping to say over her shoulder: "C'mon. We've got work to do and I don't know about you but I could do with a coffee before we get started."

Zaeed stood up and muttered as he followed behind her: "I've been needing more than a _coffee_ since this started, but I suppose a cup o' tea will have to do."

* * *

Silver-blue eyes blinked in the darkness. The glimmer of light reflected off silver and blue armour slid away with the tall figure wearing it, formerly leaning against the wall, just out of view, the other side of the door to the briefing room. Garrus headed discretely towards the elevator.

 _Greaaaat. Now I'm a prop in their burgeoning relationship._

The whole way down to engineering deck, he thought about what he'd said to Shepard. Thought about how he'd told her about an ex-con turned C-sec officer and how unlikely _but possible_ it was for a person to change their entire way of living and who they are, to turn both into something good.

Hope.

He'd given her _hope_ , hadn't he?

Walking back into the main battery he shook his head and felt the need to bite himself. But then he thought about the conversation he'd just overheard, and the way she _always_ got her way... and that old Shepard-worship was back again with a vengeance. Turning a man like that around really would be a miracle but if anyone could do it, Shepard could.

 _Spirits she just has this_ _way_ _with people._

He shook his head again. _Tarmal-keen._ It seemed that most human languages didn't seem to have a direct translation for that word. The closest they seemed to have was 'manipulative' which usually only meant bad things done for bad purposes. Turian had two definitions for the same act that divided whether or not the 'manipulation' of others was done for a good cause, or a bad one. Of course in his experience, 'tarmal-keen' was a quality he'd only found in the protagonists of Turian hero stories of old – until, that is, he met Shepard.

If anyone could give someone like Zaeed a second chance and not have it blow up in their face, it was _her_. If anyone could talk a man around from a life of 'scum and villainy' (he always loved that line from 'Star Wars' - a film Shepard once introduced him to) and turn him into a productive member of galactic society... it was _her_.

He chuckled to himself. When Helena Blake showed up on Omega, he'd been prepared for the worst: just one more person soiling Shepard's name and everything she'd ever done or stood for. A criminal unsurprisingly going back on their promise to do better with their life was never going to shock Garrus, so the first thing he did upon discovering her presence there was to begin monitoring her activities. Nothing could have surprised him more (apart from Shepard coming back from the dead) than what he found out she was _actually_ doing.

He'd kept his distance from Blake – ganglord-turned-counsellor-philanthropist – to begin with, just in case she recognised him. Although he did eventually start sending some of the people he'd helped in his time on Omega to her. If her services could help them find a way to get past whatever trauma it was they'd been through then he was glad. There had even been times he'd seriously considered using her services himself, he could just never quite justify the risk of anyone learning his true identity.

Still... just _knowing_ of Helena Blake helped a little. He tried to draw strength and solace from seeing that Shepard had at least _one_ legacy that the rest of the galaxy hadn't yet found a way to defile. Were it not for her presence there, it was quite possible the darkness of Omega would have swallowed Garrus whole. The painful truth was that her example made him get his act together and assemble a  team, instead of just going it alone 'in Shepard's honour' and looking for death... For some 'noble blaze of glory' or act of defiance against a galaxy seemingly hell bent on corrupting the lives of every decent living being in it.

Blake reminded him of the fullness of Shepard's influence, her humility, her restraint, her attention to detail and her consistent and unrelenting principles... And mercy. He still struggled with that last one. Nevertheless Garrus had thus decided he was not going to be out-done by a former _ganglord_ in living a life inspired by Shepard and ultimately was the better for the competition.

 _Still fucked it up though..._ A moment's recollection of dead faces, expressions gormless but for their surprise, the blood of many colours blending in some sickening final portrait that depicted the brutal, honest conclusion of all his efforts to try to live in honour of the one woman in the galaxy who had shown him he was actually worth more than the scorn of his former superiors. _That ended real well didn't it?_

The venom of that day still poisoned his thoughts, and doubtless it always would. Failure, betrayal, spite and vengeance surged through his mind... but he pulled out the thorn enough to dim the pain of it to that of mere irritation - the way he'd been learning to do ever since the real 'Archangel'...

[If Shepard had ever been a crime-fighting superhero like in those old Earth comic books she'd once shown him, then that would have been her name – that's _why_ he originally chose it]

...rose from the dead and came to him in his time of need. Pulling thorns from your own side isn't easy, but Garrus was getting better at it since the _real_ Archangel verbally beat him over the head and had him leave Sidonis alive. He _was_ learning (slowly) that a delay between thought and action, was what allowed for mercy to be perceived, and granted.

 _She also taught me better than this self-deprecating pity._

It took mental effort but he reminded himself: _Their deaths were not my fault._

 _Sidonis – sorry son of a Varren that he might be – is a broken man._

 _And the real villains are the people who used him to get to me._

He sighed and set those memories down (again). He then applied that same logic to the situation at hand:

From a hatch underneath decking he had to climb down to open, he pulled out a data pad he'd been working on during his off-hours, and quietly closed down the searches and files he'd had running on it. He'd already dug up enough dirt on Zaeed to remind himself why the thought of him and Shepard getting together left him with a headache, but so far he didn't think he'd found anything that Shepard wouldn't already have known - or at least have expected.

It was time to let it go.

Dating Zaeed was her business, her choice, and maybe Garrus just needed to trust that she knew what she was doing... Or - far more difficult but he was learning to do this, too - accept that she was a person, as liable and as within her rights as anyone in the galaxy is, to make mistakes.

He had to admit the possibility that the reason why their dating had rattled him as much as it did was because deep down he was struggling with the notion that _his_ 'precious Shepard'...

[That being what his mother had called her when he stormed out of the family home on his way to Omega, having quit SpecTRe training after her death]

...could actually like a man like Zaeed. It changed how he thought about her, made her a little darker than he'd ever have wanted to paint her. Maybe it made her more real, and less of an idol to be worshipped. He had, after all, had to admit to himself that the fact that Shepard could actually _die_ was something of a nip-on-the-neck reality check he'd needed, when it actually came to pass. He had worshipped her that much.

Or... (and a lot more worryingly)...

Maybe it made her a little more _accessible_ than he'd ever thought she was before. He could see, rife in Zaeed, attitudes and behaviours that he himself had, but that he'd always thought Shepard found revolting – certainly she'd scolded him more than once for such things...

 _It's best not to go down that road – I've been there before, I know where it ends: with "...if only she were Turian"._ He reminded himself of that and cut the thought trail short. Garrus at least had the sense not to be interested in someone interested in someone else. Baseline: he and Zaeed were plenty different so she could easily like one of them in one way, and the other in a different way. He'd dealt with far too many cases over the years, working as a C-Sec officer, where an individual had to be arrested for trying to force the issue.

You just have to accept the fact that people are entitled to choose what they like \- do anything else and you have ceased treating them like a sentient being in favour of treating them like an object. Maybe you think it's something the other guy has that you don't. You could be right for the wrong reasons, or wrong for the right reasons - neither lands you in a good place thinking that way. There's no point wishing you were different so you could be in the other guy's shoes. You wouldn't be _you_ , and the dishonesty of trying to be someone else isn't exactly a good premise on which to launch a relationship. How good does it really feel to be loved not for being yourself, but for an image you project of someone else?

What a person _likes_ says as much about _them_ as the person they like. If you're surprised by a romantic choice they made, maybe you don't know them as well as you think you do, in which case: how can you claim you like them for anything so worthy a reason as 'who they really are'? _If I met a woman who seemingly liked dating criminal lowlifes or was willing to overlook their unconscionable activities, would I instantly find her attractive and think we were meant to be together?_ He had to laugh at that. _No. No I wouldn't. In fact it would be a real turn off_.

Even if he wasn't chasing Shepard's tail, it was still a shock seeing this other side of her. Either he _knew_ Shepard and therefore had to trust she was right about Zaeed's potential as a mate for her and accept that he was a suitable match, or he didn't know her as well as he thought he did and she genuinely fancied a bloodthirsty bounty hunter, or there was a flaw in her character that enabled her to make really bad mistakes in this regard. Even accounting for his Shepard-worship, he still couldn't believe his character assessment was _that_ far off, meaning in summary: he had no choice but to trust her judgement for now.

 _I_ _could_ _respect him,_ _if_ _he turned himself around. hell I might even_ _like_ _him if I could see it sticking..._

 _But if he does something stupid I might just have to kill him._

 _Maybe not for Shepard's sake – that's her business although I'll gladly break his neck if she asks me to. But if 'something stupid' means he's never going to learn well he's got enough of a rep that he'd be on my 'to do' list already. If Shepard disagreed in that instance, well then I'd have to disagree with her...  
_

He stopped right there. That was a dark thought - him and Shepard being at odds and there being no away out of it. It had been his worst nightmare ever since he learned of Reaper indoctrination and met the 'husks' of what were once ordinary people. Now he had a _new_ reason to worry.

With a sigh, he set the pad down and turned to his console, deciding to stop his mind from racing away with future scenarios before it drove him crazier than a Varren with Batarian Ilnuk fleas. Better to focus instead on the task at hand: to prepare for the new mission of hunting down Vido.

He began setting up alerts and 'tuning' his visor to facial recognition for Blue Sun's personnel, cross-referenced with archive listings and video/photographic evidence tagged by EDI (which was apparently ready and waiting for him). He mandibles twitched, holding that visor in his hand. It was his little secret – that software interface. One that C-Sec and the Turian military had co-developed for special forces... which he may or may not have acquired a copy of, illegally, and found to be rather useful.

The military and C-Sec didn't _always_ just hand out such tech to SpecTRes - rather they waited for SpecTRes to come asking for it. His father may or may not have had something to do with that slight 'slowness in availability'... having had the views that he had in his day that SpecTRes had too much power. Shepard probably had a version of it, but his was probably a more updated version (plus it incorporated his own tinkering).

Garrus set the calibration process into play, and imagined he'd be getting in some target practice in the Hangar Deck later. Yes, that would be good – shooting things always helped him clear his head. As he continued to wait for the files to compile, his musings moved onto Vido's general antics, as explained by Shepard as cause for the mission. A menace the guy certainly was. What he'd done to that family alone was worthy of a death sentence in Garrus' book. He also had no love for the Blue Suns. But thinking about his capacity for manipulation, his thoughts took a sharp and unexpected turn:

 _I wonder what they_ _really_ _had on Sidonis to make him turn traitor?_

In his investigations whilst tracking down Sidonis, Garrus had learned it was likely the Blue Suns who'd cornered him first. He'd always thought it strange that death wasn't something Sidonis had ever been afraid of before... Garrus would never have recruited him if he'd thought Sidonis would balk at the prospect of dying for something. Yet Sidonis had cited when Shepard confronted him about his betrayal, that facing his own mortality was what had made him falter and led to his betrayal of the team. If it hadn't been for Shepard's intervention, that had sounded lie enough for Garrus to have taken his head off.

Garrus had then just put this down to weakness and his own apparent poor judgement... That he had failed to see it when someone had claimed they had no fear of death, but just like the weakest soldier in every Turian battle poem: didn't know himself well enough to see his claim was false. Garrus had never found any evidence to suggest otherwise – never found any indication that Sidonis had something being held over his head. Still, he _was_ beginning to second guess that conclusion now. Vido seemed rather too thorough and good at covering his tracks. If he had had any involvement...

 _What if there_ _had_ _been something else..? Vido seems just the type to work that kind of knife in a somebody's back – and to keep it there. And I_ _did_ _give him plenty of reason._

Garrus activities on Omega had brought most of the Blue Suns activity in the area almost to a grinding to a halt by the time they stopped him... _A thorn in Vido's side?_ Garrus racked his brain as to mention Sidonis may have made to family or friends, or anyone important to him – anyone he could have been connected to that Vido or those following in his footsteps might have been able to get a hold of – but it was no good. Memory was not to be trusted, and Sidonis had never talked much about his past. _Perhaps I'll never know._

It was ten times over a frustrating thought. Garrus _hated_ loose ends, but he was beginning to learn now, the wisdom that regardless of whether the answers were out there or not: there was no point in worrying about them when you had no leads. He _was_ learning patience. He could bide his time. If they were going after Vido, perhaps some light would be shed.

He was also learning not to let a loose end stop him from doing a good thing... And with that, he reflected upon his aversion to Zaeed. He settled into his acceptance of the next mission, despite it being of Zaeed's making.

 _The galaxy might just be a little brighter without Vido, and_ _that_ _makes it worth doing._

* * *

REFERENCE:

Small nod to the "scum and villainy" line from the film: 'Star Wars VI: A New Hope'.


	7. Chapter 7 - Blowing Off Steam

~ Finding The Heart ~

Blow off Steam

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts. Sexual content in *this* chapter.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard and Zaeed had been working long and hard, going to-and-fro between different crew, pooling together their collective insights to better shape their plan to take down Vido. She had last paid a visit to Kasumi who was to be their eyes and ears for this mission. If the mercenaries fled or if Vido wasn't amongst the ones that paid a visit on Vladimir and Uhuru then wherever they were going, Kasumi would be getting there in advance of the rest of the team as a stowaway on their vessel when they left. In advance of that event, Kasumi worked software magic capable not only of masking her own presence to cameras by hacking their feeds, but any image of the Kodiac and strike teams, too.

According to Kasumi, remotely hacking into most of the relevant systems to mask sensor readings of the Kodiac's arrival by heat or other emissions, actually wasn't anywhere near as hard as compiling all the necessary data to alter video feeds such that a _living_ eye couldn't spot the difference. A simple loop might not be appropriate in all circumstances – a living eye might spot that. So she was making sure in advance she would have along with her, everything she needed to make the Kodiac (and anyone stepping out of it and walking around) invisible to cameras and sensors.

"Criminals are just the galaxy's best optimists – at least that's what they say..." Kasumi had said with a smile when Shepard walked in, "For the smaller scale thief that holds true. But a big heist? No. That takes planning. And a _lot_ of it." - It was quite the challenge, but Kasumi enjoyed a challenge and relished the opportunity to put her 'cyber sneaky skills' to the test.

She smiled like the proverbial cat that got the proverbial cream as she'd added at the last: "What the Illusive Man wouldn't do to get his hands on this – or the Alliance or most anybody for _that_ matter..." - tip-tapping fingers momentarily pausing only to give Shepard a wave goodbye and a glitter-eyed wink from beneath her hood. Shepard for her part, had simply shook her head and smiled as she let the door close behind her.

The Normandy had restocked at Alva on their way out of system, so they still had plenty fuel (and other supplies) left for all but the longest inter-system transits. _Lets just hope we don't end up having to make it from Hekate to Sheol or from Balor to Yakawa in one leap – we'll be dead in the water if we don't have enough fuel to cover that distance_ _and_ _back again._

Shepard was painfully aware that once the trap was sprung, there may well be no opportunity to refuel until mission's end. She was _also_ painfully aware that those locations – Sheol and Yakawa – might just make the best choices for Vido's last stronghold; the sanctuary he might run to in last resort as his last defensible stand. Zaeed had agreed, saying that having such a fallback position was more than likely the way Vido would think... Especially after Shepard and Zaeed had hit him that first time on his home turf: the more-easily-accessible-with-sublight-engines Zorya – formerly the location of the head offices of the Blue Suns.

Other parts of the plan were already in motion: Shepard had ordered Joker to take the Normandy out of Freyr's system – home of Mindoir – on a vector for Aldor system. There were a couple of planets with moons not yet surveyed for resources there and the Normandy was known to do surveys and then trade the results for credits and parts. Further to that, the reason the system was largely unsurveyed was due in no small part to the presence of one of the lesser piracy groups in the Attican Traverse – another plausible interest for a vessel with the Normandy's reputation.

It made sense, or would make sense, to anyone watching.

However the Normandy was now on turnabout, having moved just out of the range of Freyr's system ship locator buoys. It was coming back into Freyr system, but this time it was doing it with _all_ stealth systems active. The SR2 was larger than the SR so hiding its presence was not as easy. First and foremost it put out a far larger energy signature – the SR2's heat sinks had to work a lot harder than those of the Normandy SR. At closer range its size presented a more visually identifiable object, should it pass line-of-sight between a hyperspectral scanner and, say, a star or the sun (depending on the distance). At closer range, light reflecting off its hull might even be spotted by the living eye.

They couldn't drop into Freyr's system just anywhere if they wanted to remain undetected for a longer length of time – they had to pick somewhere (and a vector) that would have them skirt around locator buoys and their active and passive scanning ranges... Have them scoot in on the dark side of Nóttar (a suitably named planet for its tendency to scramble and distort sensor readings, effectively making sensors go dark – including one's own) out of line-of-sight with anything that might otherwise spot them.

The roundtrip back to Freyr's system would take twelve hours. They had that long to get everything ready. She and Zaeed had worked and worked and worked over all contingencies, all possibilities, all circumstances that they could think of until neither of them could even see straight. All that was left was to grab a bite to eat, get some sleep and upon reaching their destination: wait. Wait until the word came that a Blue Suns vessel was on its way into system, then dispatch the Kodiak with the first team and hope they caught the crew planetside – and that Vido would be amongst the landing party. Oh and: that they managed to catch him first time.

Shepard now sat in the mess-hall finishing her meal. She'd stared the while at where Zaeed's plate _would_ be if only Zaeed had been sensible and followed her here for food instead of heading off down to the Hangar Deck for another brutal assault on the punch bag. She sighed as she downed the last of her jasmine tea, returned the tray to Gardiner and quietly requested from him something that could be eaten cold or reheated 'to go' – whatever he thought Zaeed would/could stomach.

Gardiner spared her a pained look – doubt for the worth of her troubles taken on Zaeed's account, and perhaps pity, given how well Gardiner had cause to suspect Zaeed might not receive well such an attempt to look after him. Gardner had learned firsthand how bad Zaeed's temper could be and while everyone onboard understood now that Zaeed _had_ had a depressing reason for his behaviour, Gardiner wasn't about to think that excused everything – it helped explain, but not excuse.

Shepard said nothing in response to that look, having come to expect it from crew whenever she mentioned Zaeed's name. She merely thanked Gardiner for "another good meal" and headed off with the little bag of goodies he'd put together, wafting the spicy smell of its contents down the corridor as she walked. Indeed Zaeed was still in the Hangar Deck. She walked in to the rhythm of smacks and thumps sounding off a semi-solid object. She approached him with purposefully loud footsteps before speaking:

"Hey. Brought you some food." It was possible he hadn't heard her, but least he didn't seem to be quite as despondent as the last time she'd come down here to interrupt his workout, and he didn't look to be mad either. OK so he wasn't ignoring her: he was just focused. She readied her hand to drop the takeaway if a swing came her way, walked up to him and yelled this time:

"Hey!" He jumped and spun around, startled, but was quickly relieved when recognition set in. He spared her a tired look over his shoulder as he faced back towards the punch bag.

"Shepard - want a go?" He asked over his shoulder without really looking in her direction.

Mind on business and completely focused – he probably hadn't even noticed she was in uniform until after he'd asked, then couldn't be bothered to correct himself. That would mean asking why she had come, and that would mean thinking and stopping – neither of which being things he wanted to do. The thought of food probably hadn't occurred to him either, and evidently he'd lost track of time spent on his exertions. Or maybe he imagined that somehow if he stayed here long enough, he could go straight from punching this bag to punching Vido's face on-mission.

He turned back and hit the punch bag with a final combo – a double punch to the middle, an uppercut, followed by a spinning kick that sent the bag recoiling backwards enough that he had to wait a second to be able to steady it again. He turned to face her, wiping the sweat from his brow. Shepard shook her head and chuckled:

"Way you're hitting that thing I actually almost feel _sorry_ for it." She half-smiled and added: "Thought I'd instead offer it a reprieve from its beating and bringing you something to eat."

He huffed – a half-laugh, with a half-smile back to match: "Thanks but not hungry."

"Zaeed..." She raised a brow.

He gestured to the punch bag and nodded in its direction. "I keep imagining this thing has Vido's face – helps me hone my concentration, fills me with all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings." Spoken deadpan, dagger-eyes and a sneer replaced the half-smile as he struck the bag again with what would have been a crushing blow to the throat if it had been a person.

"Hungry or not: soldier's gotta eat. You want to beat the real thing you're going to need food and rest."

"Hmph." – Another huff but a less friendly one this time. He stopped though, hands on hips and breathing hard. There was an awkward silence for a minute as he caught his breath, then speaking quietly:

"Keeping my mind and body occupied seems to be the only thing keeping me sane right now." He gestured to his head with a gloved hand and flash of a quick, and quite-fake grin.

He was being too damned stubborn for his own good (again) but she thought about that last sentence. Maybe if she offered him another sort of activity, he might be willing to give the punch bag a rest and finally get some food and rest. At this point she was almost willing to try anything, because he was going to pass out if he kept this up and not be in any state to do anything come mission start.

 _More than one way to blow off steam..._

\- _Thanks Garrus._ Words of her old Turian friend sprang to mind – and quite frankly that might just be the only activity that might get his attention, and the one alternative that she was now in a unique position for being able to offer. She signed. _Worth a try..._ And upon further reflection: ... _as much for my sake as his_. Mindoir had brought bitterness to them both. Being there had dredged up a whole bunch of memories and a distraction would certainly be welcome. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he held back from lurching into the next bout of violence towards the punch bag. He looked at her, quizzically, as she stepped a little closer to him.

"I can think of some _other_ activities that would keep your mind and body occupied but leave you a little more rested..." She offered with a gentle smile, and reached upward with her free hand to stroke his face. He flinched. As quickly then as she had reached towards his face, he'd removed his right hand glove and grabbed at her wrist to pull it away. Confusion and worry racked her face as a knot tightened around her stomach and she frantically tried to work it out:

 _What did I do..?!_

There was something odd in his expression. Then thought occurred to her that it had been the left side of his face - the scarred side - that she'd touched. She'd never touched him there before. She just hadn't got around to asking him whether he was alright with it or not - she _had_ meant to. Now she'd gone and just done it – casually – and maybe it _was_ something he was sensitive about. _And now he's staring._ Then another thought occurred to her and she wanted to face-palm all the more:

 _What's that Thane, you're dying? Is it contagious? Oh hey Tali can't you just... find another homeworld? Oh hey Zaeed you've just had most of your life turned upside down and inside out – fancy a quick shag?_

She wanted to kick herself. She wanted to be somewhere else. _How the hell does my brain even come up with this sh-_

Zaeed suddenly tightened his grip and yanked her towards him. Pinning her arms against his chest in his embrace, he kissed her with the force of a hurricane that sent any thoughts she was about to have, spinning off into oblivion. She was now no less confused by _this_ than when he'd blocked her hand, and more than that: she now had to thump him on the chest to make him stop long enough for her to breathe.

 _Well... then... maybe it wasn't a bad thing..._

She caught her breath and smiled: "C'mon. My quarters. _Food first._ "

"Food later." he said – and attempted to devour her tonsils. Throwing his other glove on the floor he grabbed her ass and pulled her close against him, his enthusiasm pressing urgently against her inner thigh-

"Oh no no no no we are NOT doing it here." She remarked and shoved him backwards, although he didn't have quite the devilish smile she'd have expected for that comment. It was just... _hunger_. Scurrying off to pick up the takeaway she'd reflexively tossed aside when he first kissed her, she made haste to the lift before he caught her. He had a look of thunder about him as he stood staring at her as he unwound the bandages on his hand with careful deliberation. He then stalked off to shove the gloves back in the locker before turning to stalk back in her direction.

For a moment, she figured she'd spoiled his mood and he was just plain mad, but then instead of slowing down as he reached the lift he full-on walked into her and took her with him, straight back - _bang -_ against the rear wall. Thank the goddess she'd already pressed the button for the lift to go to her quarters. Thank the goddess the SR2's lift was faster than the SR's. Thank the goddess she had the spacial awareness to walk backwards out of the lift, find her door panel, and step _over_ the doorframe and not trip over it. Goddess be glad she was able to drop his food on the sideboard before he squished it between the sideboard and her backside.

"Hey you need to calm down!" She laughed, managing then to escape his lips long enough to look him in the eye. It was only a half-warning but a valid one borne from past experience: a man can go to fast and too hard, not realising when he's hurting you for his passionate excitement. Zaeed as yet had never overstepped that mark, but tonight he seemed a little more aggressive than usual. If he kept to his pattern of wanting to do her from behind, well... in that position she wasn't going to have any control.

A body might fix itself after such an experience, but the mind never did.

"You could give me a cold shower and it wouldn't slow me down." He assaulted her neck with half-biting kisses and groaned into her as he did so. He bit hard enough for her to cuff him around the ear:

"Keep biting me like that and I'm definitely going to think you need food first." She chuckled, "Alright... so if a cold shower wouldn't work... howabout a warm one?"

He stopped suddenly, pulling back enough to look at her, inquisitively. She pushed off the desk and sauntered towards the bathroom, then. Tipping her head just over her shoulder she coyly smiled back at him as she began to undo what remained of her clothing, in no great haste. He gawked. She couldn't help but grin:

"Well... You _have_ been trying to share a shower with me for a while now..." - And held back the other thoughts running through her mind like ' _and it's been fourteen hours since my last one'_ and ' _I don't know when my next one will be'_ and _'I might love the smell of 'man' but you really did spend_ _too __long_ _punching that bag!'_ and just smiled invitingly as she stretched up to the frame of the door in her underwear and arched her back.

Zaeed grinned and decided that Shepard needed 'devious bitch' to be added to her CV as he realised he'd just been conned... He'd been baited up here to her quarters with an offer he couldn't refuse, by a woman whose only real present intent was probably just to try to get him to do sensible things like shower, eat and sleep. Still... it wasn't so bad a trap to fall for, considering the bait.

Then out of absolutely fucking nowhere this soppy-sweet sentiment struck him and he was suddenly incredibly grateful. She was _trying_ to look after him. She cared. She honestly did. He'd knew never truly appreciated Alice. He knew now that Alice had done a lot of things out of love... And it had been that long ago that anybody genuinely gave a shit. _I kinda like Shepard's methods a little better though..._ \- Shepard was a fuck-tonne more devious. His smile turned into a dirty smirk: _and sharing a shower with her_ was _ definitely on my to-do list._

"C'mon." She looked at him, dropping the last garment on the floor. "I'll make it worth your while."

Zaeed's breath hitched and he had to gulp. Shepard didn't swagger like that for anyone. She didn't pose like that for anyone else. She didn't move like that, talk like that, or smile in that way for _anyone_ (including himself, most of the time) and – save one time he overheard her talking with Kelly and nearly choked on his coffee – she didn't flirt with _anyone_. So all this... was for him. Just him. Galaxy's golden girl, sending off _all_ the enticing messages that most women in the galaxy seemed to do by nature, except _she_ only did it for _him_. Hell of a confidence boost – that.

She turned, gave him a wink, then let the door shut behind her. Part exhaustion, part delirium: he almost tripped over his shorts and boxers undressing as fast as he could, nigh on launching his face into the bathroom door which he stumbled around as it shot open.

The shower was on and she was waiting – a shampoo bottle in each hand, posed seductively. He took a moment to appreciate that sight, impressed that she could do such a thing and somehow make it look sexy. He'd always thought that most adverts like that were just plain stupid, although the one for that Salarian shampoo product ten years back on Omega gave it a decent go – rehash of some old Earth product from back in the late 1900s. _What was the catch phrase again? Oh yeah – 'The Jynx Effect'_ – ironic that the new franchise name was actually closer to the truth for its effect on human females. Bloody idiots used _Salarian_ pheromones because they couldn't identify human ones.

 _Well I guess that taught me never to buy anything that debuts on Omega. Smelt like a frog for days..._

He slowly walked towards her, wondering what she was up to, cheerfully reassured as she likewise looked him up and down. His erection flexed and she lazily caught the movement with half-lidded eyes and a devilish smirk. She certainly was a sight to inspire as water pouring over her naked form, exaggerating and defining all the curves that made him hunger for her... in streams that thread down the course of her body. Stepping into the water he sidled up to her, flexing his erection between her thighs, leaning on the shower wall with his forearm and backing her up against it.

Shepard yelped – the wall of the shower not being quite so warm as the water – and laughed. In this moment she had forgotten... _everything_ – including the bottles she held in either hand. She forgot all the thoughts that would otherwise have plagued her after being on Mindoir. He kissed her, she kissed back. His one arm saved her head from the tiles, the other groped over her body because water had that weird way of increasing - not diminishing - friction between skin and skin. Hell it was a good excuse to give everything a damned good _squeeze._

It was only the realisation that he was actually trying to angle himself _into_ her that made Shepard snap back her focus to what she's wanted to do. She laughed – it was something many a man had never figured out until they were told...

"What's so funny?" Zaeed paused and looked at her with a frown, although he was still smiling.

"Umn... Well there's no delicate way to put this but... You won't be getting in there until _after_ we've showered." She bit her lip and waited for him to either blow up, demand why, or both.

"Damn it woman you sure know how to taunt a man. Let me guess... You're all 'closed up' because of the water, right?" He puffed air out through his nose in a disgruntled sound and pulled a grumpy face which quickly relaxed when he found some humour in the moment. The surprise on her face for his statement, helped with that.

"How the... How the _hell_ do  you know _that?!"_ She looked at him, confused. Now it was _his_ turn to laugh. Confusing Shepard by knowing something she didn't expect him to know was always a moment to treasure.

"Just something I've learned over the years. Some of you can, some of you can't. Except for Asari... They _always_ can – probably their squidly origins I guess. But humans are land-based mammals, something about having a natural response to close up when you're immersed in water, right? Except some of you close up so tight you can't even finger yourselves." He pulled a face and tossed his head from side to side – "Guessing you're the latter."

"Well... as a matter of fact..." Shepard's face squirmed, not wanting to admit he'd just one-upped her: "Yes."

"Mm. Sod's law." He sighed and grinned: "You're a hellova tease, Shepard." And with that he grabbed the shampoo bottle off her and got to work on lathering his own hair. Shepard stood there, empty hand still raised, mouth gaping with just one question burning in her mind:

 _How the hell does he know this stuff?!_

This was not the first occasion Zaeed had demonstrated that he knew more about women's sexual biology and needs than any man she'd ever met or even heard of. Hell there were even plenty women ignorant of some of the things _he_ knew! But she set the question aside, lathered her own hair and rinsed it.

Zaeed waited then rinsed his hair, then sought out and found the other bottle of his that now lived in Shepard's bathroom and contained his body wash. She reached for her own from amongst an array of bottles, picking out the one she saved for _very_ rare occasions... Occasions where she _wasn't_ as dirty as to have spent three days on a battlefield and therefore didn't really need to scrub...

It was a special formula – this one. One that didn't really soak in (so you could keep it on for quite a while) but was luxuriously smooth to lather. Made from the simplest ingredients, suitable for all known human skin types, plus a fair few alien ones. It had been a gift from Ash - she'd bought it on their first trip to the Citadel and given it to Shepard as a joke...

 _"I figured that now the galaxy's open to you people will be climbing all over themselves to get your good side as the first human SpeTRe, Hell Shepard you might finally get laid! And this might come in handy when you do."_ – with a wink. _Always_ with a wink...

Or was it? No way this bottle could have survived the destruction of the first Normandy, and she couldn't decide how scary or thoughtful it was that somehow a bottle had wound up in her new cabin. She checked the date – it was still fine. _Well Ash, either way looks like I might finally get some use out of your gift._ Then she imagined Ash's face if one day she discovered who she'd been using it _with_ and laughed out loud.

"What?" Zaeed momentarily stopped, suds streaming off his chest and with a little stuck to the side of his cheek.

"Oh just thinking of what an old friend would say if she knew who I was with right now." Shepard smiled.

She quickly put a little over herself in the places that needed to be cleaned and rinsed off. Then just as Zaeed finished rinsing his upper body, she poured a little more into her hands and reached for his (now relaxed) penis. He jumped at that, which made her laugh, then she explained as she began to massage him, gently siding her fingers up and down its length:

"Shower sex might not be an option but there _are_ some things that can be done in here and nowhere else. Like making sure you're _clean_..." Zaeed's breath hitched and he completely stopped what he was doing and froze. She continued to massage him. What had been flaccid, was now pulsing into erection and he groaned. Her hands slid, frictionless, in slow motions from base to tip. He had to brace himself against the wall, his legs going weak.

"Not done..." He murmured, "... this... before..." She reached a little lower to gently lather his scrotum in gentle, slow, rhythmical motion and with _that_ he struggled to keep his feet. Then she stopped abruptly, and said cheerfully:

"All done! Now you can rinse." She quickly rinsed herself clean and stepped out of the shower while _he_ just stood there blinking with confusion and this gormless look upon his face (she had to try so hard not to laugh) – still erect. She grabbed a towel from the cabinet and headed towards the door as she eyeing him up and down:

"Maybe if you're fast enough, you can still use that erection you've got there." – and let the door close behind her. She began towel-drying herself as she walked out of the bathroom, an evil grin across her face. Indeed it wasn't long before she heard hurried footsteps and the frantic opening and closing of more than one cabinet – _must have gone to the wrong one first. Must be distracted. Wonder why that is?_ The door opened shortly after that.

She bent down (purposefully) as she heard him approach, to dry her lower legs and was satisfied when she felt something slip between her thighs (the knuckle of his thumb, testing for lubrication). Wet is not the same as _wet_ , so he relented and she carried on drying herself. But apparently he _hadn't_ hit the wrong cupboard; he'd been searching for something else... and had found it...

She knew it when she caught the scent: an old bottle of Asari massage oil placed in her cabin prior to her arrival that she had never used. He started with her ass, slowly smoothing down under her cheeks to her loins, just shy of the hair. Next he started on her hips as she stood up straight and dried her upper body some more. Smoothing around her pelvis then around to her muscular thighs - a little more poured into his palms - his hands moved up her waist then across her tummy, then around her breasts and up to her shoulders and back. His hands glided over her, frictionless with the oil.

Shepard turned around to face him then, enjoying the sensation of sliding herself up against him as his arms glided around her waist to embrace her, his hands smoothly stroking down either side of her spine to her ass. He kissed down from her ear to her shoulder with gentle bites and she felt him again testing for lubrication, this time with something a lot softer than his thumb. She could feel there was some mucus emerging from her, as if the heat and tingling down there wouldn't have told her that, and she moaned a little in anticipation. Reaching down to hold him, she ensured he felt it too, or at least knew she was ready. She managed to direct him backwards, then stepping sidewards she smirked and gently took hold of his penis, and guided him by it with gentle tugs past the fish tank and towards the bed, stopping intermittently to slide both hands up and down it to maintain his interest. She needn't have bothered - it would have taken decompression to zero atmosphere to diminish _that_.

Reaching the bed he backed her down onto it, slowly, slipped on a condom and buried his face in her left shoulder as he pressed himself to her – chest sliding effortlessly against chest. As he pulled back she spread her legs and then herself with her fingers. He obliged the invitation, taking his time to push in a fraction of an inch then pull out again. Each time he brought out with him a little more of her natural lubricant, allowing him with the next push to penetrate just a little deeper. They both groaned with relief when with that last stroke, he push all the way inside her.

She whimpered quietly with every slow withdrawal – the little noises he so loved to hear. She really didn't get to have him on top of her very often. It was something she'd been meaning to ask him about for a while now because... Truthfully it was her favourite place (and she kept thinking _that_ the while), especially when he was so deep inside her that his abdomen pressed against her own, hardening clitoris... Doing the job he otherwise had to use his fingers to do to satisfy her in other positions. More than that she loved the closeness of him, being able to feel him with as much of her body as possible, and being able to reach him with her hands. That was a biggie. She _loved_ running her hands up and down his body, tracing the scars, with a greater and greater sense of comforting recognition, each time they lay like this.

The massage oil was simply sublime. His body glided over hers, his chest sliding over her nipples in the process with each motion, in and out, while her legs moved frictionless over the outside of his thighs and her feet along his calves. She felt him pulse harder upon each entry – it was difficult not to get too excited too quickly; she knew he liked to take his time... But she couldn't help it: she was grabbing at his ass before she knew it, pleading with her hands for him to go faster. He grabbed _her_ ass then – _which she loved –_ and ground himself into her, the pleasure or orgasm quickly paralysing her but for her wanting him to press into her. She squinted her eyes to keep them shut (which took real effort) as she knew he always asked her to, while she released her grip on his ass and allowed him to move at his own pace at what would otherwise be above her enough for her to see his face - if only he'd ever let her watch.

As Zaeed raised himself on his hands to look down at her, he brought himself that much closer to finishing. He couldn't help but grin the while she paddy-pawed his chest with both hands. He wondered if she knew she did that, but he wasn't about to tell her in case she stopped. His pace quickened a little – then he eased out for shorter, sharper thrusts. Very close now, he wanted to savour it but it was too much. Her pulsing pushed him over the edge as his chest came down against her for a few more deep thrusts, his hand on her ass again. He groaned and grunted, and she felt the release of him reaching his own ecstasy. She moaned back softly with satisfaction, as he pressed into her for just a few more, slow, beats, before finally relaxing in her embrace.

"Damn..." Shepard finally managed to find words after the pair of them shuddered a few times, "How _did_ you get _sooooo_ good?!"

Zaeed chuckled and gnawed into her neck for a short while before answering:

"...It's a long story."

* * *

REFERENCES:

I looked at the images provided for different areas of the Milky Way in the Mass Effect wikia and decided that Hakate to Sheol (in the Hades Nexus) and Balor to Yakawa would be the greatest distances to travel sublight. I also used an all-encompassing galaxy map put together by overt to cross off candidates that were in 'civilised' space e.g. Council Space. Sources:

Mass Effect wikia: Hades Nexus

Mass Effect wikia: Caleston Rift

Deviant Art (artist: otvert) 'Mass Effect Galaxy Map'

I struggled to find out what the name Mindoir came from – the closest I could find was "Mindor" being a modern Nordic name. So... running on that theme I imagined a system and other planets and gave them names.

Given that Mindoir is a gardenworld, I thought it being in the system Freyr – a name derived from the Nordic god of fertility – would work.

Aldor is an old Nordic name derived from albh ('to shine, gleam') and Þor ('thunder').

Nóttar (the name of the planet the Normandy is hid behind) is one I invented from 'Nótt' meaning night in old norse.

Alva is just another Nordic name.

Please bear in mind I am no naming expert, and this was more a naming exercise based on internet searches and what I could invent from them than any knowledge I have about Nordic names or their origins!


	8. Chapter 8 - And So It Begins

~ Finding The Heart ~

And So It Begins

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

The Normandy had slipped into Freyr's system without notice to Shepard – EDI having calculated the probability of the arrival of a Blue Suns vessel against the Commander's apparent ideal length for a sleep cycle, had decided that one more hour (in addition to those during which she had detected no speech from within the Commander's cabin) was a worthwhile gain for acceptable risk. She roused the Commander as per that calculation, and was _pleased_ when out-systems comms traffic came in an hour later (half an hour's lag assumed due to the system buoy), suggested that a Blue Suns cargo ship was indeed on its way to this system. _'Pleased'_ being the word Joker was teaching her to use when events occurred according to her predictions, within acceptable thresholds for ideal outcomes following planning decision that she had made.

Bodies scrambled from breakfasts, showers, targeting practices and calibrations, and shortly thereafter poured into the Kodiac, armed and dangerous. Zaeed was already there when Shepard hopped the step into the seat furthest from the door. He'd taken the opposing seat – first in. He watched the door close, then flicked his eyes back to hers with a cold glare, jaw set... Quiet. He was going to have to stay there when everyone else got out – that was the arrangement – and he was to stay put with KaMpande unless things got really, _really_ bad and they needed the extra gun-hand.

Shepard for her part, sat taking in the faces present, thinking about how Zaeed might be feeling, thinking about the mission. _The mission._ She centred on that, and drew her calm from it, ignoring the dread she felt at the prospect of returning to a planet she'd long since left behind... trying to ignore the fact that she knew it would be painted in the colours of a season she had twice known to bring her great misery. No: _The mission –_ that's what she tried to think about now, going over every detail, setting memory aside and sidestepping her mind's unerring attempt to offer assistance in the context of predicting future trauma from old trauma, divulging and diversifying its scenarios (so often as it was wont to do) through flashback and nightmare.

kaMpande - who doubled as the Normandy's on-deck head of security and her best Kodiak pilot, second only to Joker - swooped the Kodiak gracefully down the valley at speed, skimming the ground below the tree line of the woodland that brimmed the little hills surrounding Vladimir's farm. Being in security he knew a thing or two about tracking and how not to be tracked, so he was careful to coordinate the timing and direction of that last stint of their ride with the weather. They were downwind of the direction that the Blue Suns would be expected to arrive from, affording them just that little extra time before anyone might actually _hear_ the Kodiak shuttle approaching if they were already on the ground.

 _It's not just scent that carries on the wind... but sound too...  
_

Try as she might to suppress them, Shepard's memories wanted _in_. It was her mother's voice she heard. She had taught Shepard such things long before Alliance strategy classes did. So many little gems of warrior-wisdom she'd imparted to her little girl, when daddy was not around. She told them as children's fables, having never really used them herself but having learned them with great dedication from her _own_ mother who  had used them for real, formerly having been a colonial military officer before settling down with Shepard's grandfather.

 _Learn the ways of war and war will find you. Keep your nose out of trouble, and no trouble will come to you._

\- That was her father's voice, whenever he'd caught Shepard's mother telling one of her stories. But her mother always had to have the last word, and so often whispered with a wink when he had gone elsewhere:

 _But sometimes trouble finds you anyway, and it's times like that, my love, that it pays to be extra careful!_

... And as the shuttle gently touched down in a clearing of the woods, Shepard could not help but remember the day her mother was right. She remembered it all to well as she stepped out of the Kodiak in a haze of memory mixed with the sights and sounds of the living present. She eyed the trees surrounding them with an elevated heartbeat that she tried to subdue as she began walking towards them. There were exchanges going on between her team and KaMpande, but none got her attention as she continued forwards, only five steps later realising she had forgotten why she was here and, after remembering, suddenly wondered whether she was even heading in the right direction. Her heart skipped another beat in the realisation, and then one more when it occurred to her she hadn't even looked at Zaeed when she'd left him behind on the Kodiak. She actually hoped in this instance that he was too self-absorbed to notice.

* * *

KaMpande powered down all systems, turned off everything that might make a noise, or might attract visual attention. There was no point returning to the Normandy for a mission that was unlikely to take more than a few more hours, and any additional time spent flying could lead to someone noticing that the Kodiak was here. There was no knowing who might recognise it as after so many missions with someone as high-profile as _the_ Commander Shepard. Anyone who'd ever seen them and lived to tell the tale might discern the connection and guess she was here. It just wasn't worth the risk.

All that said, he'd rather be just about anywhere else around about now than babysitting a disgruntled and irritable mercenary bounty hunter... KaMpande being the Normandy's security officer who happened to have been eating in the cafeteria when certain events kicked off. _He_ was the one who had to throw this particular good-for-nothing bastard out of the cafeteria for assaulting fellow officers and causing a drunken disturbance, confining him to the Starboard Cargo Hold. He'd almost had a broken nose for the trouble, too, if Massani hadn't been too drunk to aim right with his elbow. _That_ hurt his pride more than anything, because on his best day KaMpande was good enough to get the Illusive Man's attention for employment, but having worked with Shepard and her team, he had to admit he'd discovered better. That was not so bad when it was Shepard or the ones he liked, but Zaeed... he rather wished he was certain he could best.

It annoyed him that being part of the Commander's _team_ meant that Mr I'm-a-badassani could – unless Shepard noted otherwise – tell him what to, excluding a few core duties that were his alone to call the shots on. It also annoyed him that as such, Mr I'm-a-badassani couldn't get what was coming to him. Worse than that, it seems the Commander had somehow developed a soft spot for this dishonourable man, who now dragged her back to Mindoir – the one place in the galaxy that KaMpande reckoned Shepard probably would never again want to be.

He knew her file. Being a Security Officer for Cerberus _had_ meant access to such things. He had read it at great lengths, because Shepard was a legend, even outside of the Alliance and Citadel space. Cerberus had dug up other details too, things the Alliance probably didn't have in the files they kept on her. Things like... she evaded capture by slavers for two days at the age of sixteen, right here on this planet, this very continent and climate zone in fact. He knew that her parents were buried at the cemetery Zaeed had requested to visit. He knew that she'd joined the Alliance after a close friend and fellow survivor of the raid had turned to drugs. He knew that kid had subsequently killed himself, before she returned from basic training, and that she never went back to Mindoir after that. KaMpande imagined only Officer Lawson shared this knowledge, her having been the Illusive Man's pet and the mad scientist who'd somehow managed to put Shepard – body and mind – back together again (somehow after, by all accounts, she was dead).

"Damn it's even autumn..." He said to himself aloud, and forgot that with engines and everything else turned off, he'd actually be audible through the glass dividing his cockpit from the personnel section.

"What?" – came that gruff voice from the other side.

KaMpande closed his eyes, reached for the sky with them and begged the spirits of his ancestors for patience and forgiveness for his ignorance, especially as now he'd started it, he was damn well going to finish this conversation and give this mercenary bastard a piece of his mind.

"You don't know?" He barked back at Zaeed.

"Know _what_?" Zaeed snapped. Maybe he remembered that KaMpande had broken his nose. Maybe he didn't. KaMpande didn't care either way. He wasn't sure why he himself was so angry. Maybe he just imagined that if Shepard was actually involved with a someone who brought her back to places of such sour memory, then at least the someone in question should know that was the case.

"Shepard came from Mindoir."

"Yeah. I know that, dumbass." Zaeed growled back. "Said she left after slavers hit the colony."

"So you know her parents were buried in the graveyard you visited? Can't imagine how she felt about that." KaMpande was frowning, but did not turn his face to look through the glass. There was silence from the other side. Possibly he had _not_ known that.

"... Actually I didn't know that." Zaeed grunted, finally, slouching back against hit seat with an audible thump as he then mentally kicked himself because it should have been fucking obvious.

It was moments like this that KaMpande remembered why he did what he did for a living, and didn't go any higher. The thought only _now_ occurred to him that he might be divulging information Shepard considered personal. But it was too late now, and by his ancestors, these were things Zaeed should have known.

"Well it _also_ all happened around this time of year." KaMpande was earthborn, and had to remind himself to add: "- Autumn." to the end of that sentence, because he'd learned spacers just didn't have a feel for such things as seasons. Zaeed's file said he'd come from a mining colony – a rock with no life and not worth teraforming from what he remembered.

Zaeed was surprisingly quiet after that. Thinking, no doubt. KaMpande suddenly felt a little sorry for him. Clearly he hadn't known, but clearly he _did_ actually have the capacity to do the emotional math required to sum up what being here might be doing to Shepard. Was it possible he had the emotional investment to actually give a shit? Maybe. KaMpande felt obliged then, to say a little more:

"Word is..." _Ancestors forgive me: I know I got it from her file not some common bar conversation..._ "They came for her at the family farm. Two days she spent evading them, hiding in and fleeing through the woodlands that bordered her parent's holding." _Take a look out the window,_ he almost said, _and imagine what she's feeling._

He heard rustling in the back, and spared a look over his shoulder where he found Zaeed slouched, head down, rubbing his forehead with one hand propped on his knee and the other rubbing his temples. KaMpande turned away, thinking enough had been said after that. A few moments later, audible in the silence of inactive machinery and a natural landscape, he heard Zaeed say more quietly:

"She should've fucking told me."

KaMpande elected to speak no more, deciding he'd said enough. Instead he occupied himself with thoughts of escape routes, alternative pick-up sites, and anything else useful he could think of. There was, and he was grateful for it, a prolonged silence after that – a good twenty minutes or so – but then Zaeed said something that KaMpande would never have thought the man capable of saying:

"I'm sorry."

KaMpande had to think for a moment. "What about?" He replied, finally, having decided he had no idea exactly what the man was sorry for (there was quite a long list of things he figured Zaeed _should_ be sorry for).

"You're the one who had to confine me to quarters. I remember that much."

KaMpande let out a long, exhaustive sigh. He hesitated to reply, tongued his teeth and tried to take in the apology before answering:

"Yeah, well... I also broke your nose. Just see to it that I don't have to do it again."

A pause from Zaeed, then: "You have my word on it."

 _His word?!_ Ordinarily KaMpande wouldn't have taken that as being of any worth or value, but he looked over his shoulder and saw the cold burning of a _warrior's_ conviction staring back at him. He stared back likewise:

"I'll hold you to that."

* * *

They headed deeper into the woods. Where had been blue sky with a few white clouds, thicker clouds began to roll over their heads and in the shadows of the trees, Shepard realised darkness was going to come earlier than expected. She should have been pleased at that – arriving at the farm dwelling, stables, barns and various sheds under the cover of dusk. Few sentient species saw well in the fading light, so the improved chance of them arriving undetected and therefore not spooking the Blue Suns before the trap was sprung should have been a welcome blessing. But it wasn't, damn it.

 _Gods and goddesses I've got to keep this together._ She thought to herself, realising she was sweating ever so slightly, despite the chill in the air. Dusk in a woodland was the stuff of nightmares for Shepard. It was the one memory that had plagued her sleeping mind before the Prothean beacons had given her subconscious more 'exciting' and new material to work with.

She had run barefoot through leaves like this once, as the light faded, hunting and hunting for somewhere to hide. She had been a frightened young girl listening for the sounds of footfalls as her eyes became less and less useful. She could never forget those first few hours – that first night when the slavers were closest to finding her. She could never forget the screams she had heard ringing out clear across the valley of people being killed, taken, or worse... which had haunted her mind as imaginary sounds the days that followed. That... _That_ had been terror.

The wind rustled the leaves and she heard the sound of a booted foot landing softly behind her a few feet away. She spun around, startled, gun raised.

"Shepard?"

Shepard's eyes locked onto the origin of a familiar voice and met alien and yet familiar eyes, her panic subsided. Samara stood unmoving, looking upon her with her usual ever-calm expression. Shepard paused and caught her breath, glad that her helmet and visor blocked the horror that may have been on her face just moments before, although there was no hiding how she had just reacted. She recovered, _would_ recover the same way, she told herself, that she had recovered so many times over so many years before. She would recover, because she _had_ to. That was the deal she made with herself.

Grunt had also stopped. He was curious, perhaps, about what could so unnerve 'the great Commander Shepard'. Or perhaps he was assessing a weakness, or maybe he was simply confused. _No. He's smarter than that – smarter than people think of him and he prefers it that way – even if he is incredibly childlike in other ways._ With that she swallowed what she may have told Samara in confidence for why she was so on edge.

"Memories, Samara. Just memories." But when Samara refused to disengage her eyes from Shepard's, she tried to spill it in a calm, orderly fashion:

"I lived on this planet as a child. My parents had a farm, until they were taken by slavers when I was sixteen."

Samara nodded, they moved onwards. Grunt continued 'being focused', although Shepard suspected he was listening just the same. Thane, the silent and invisible listener, had already cloaked and was moving on ahead in spurts, progressively making ground on them to scout ahead. Kasumi had taken the direct route and was long gone, for her task lay elsewhere and moving independently under cloak allowed her to cover far more ground, far more quickly. She would only break radio silence under the greatest urgency of some mission-breaking revelation. Shepard reminded herself of these things as she walked... _Tried_ to keep going over them, with a need to keep her mind busy.

Another ten minutes into the woods and Samara spoke: "It is hard to imagine an Asari being capable of anything useful at the age of sixteen – we lack the emotional maturity to survive in any way on our own at so young an age. If you do not mind my asking, how did you survive the slaver assault?" It seemed that prickled Grunt's interest, for in just a moment's twitch he looked across at the both of them.

"I fled for two days through woodlands like these, using the titbits of knowledge passed onto me by my mother from my grandmother who used to be a colonial officer." Shepard hopped a fallen tree and altered direction such that her path would lie closer to the next tree in the doubtful event she would suddenly need the cover. She continued coldly:

"I knew the land, I knew to cross brooks where I could to lose my own scent trail. I knew things I could eat from the forest and rationed myself. I knew to move with the wind and not against it. I used the leaf litter and mud to turn a few branches into a heat shield. I knew to hide my eyes and control my breathing when someone got too close."

Samara continued to walk boldly forward. A few hundred years of doing this sort of thing meant she instinctively knew the ranges of hearing, sight and scent (which for most other species one or other of their senses was notably better than humans) and how those senses worked in concert for each species – on average – when it came to detecting a foreign force moving on their position. Although she might not make the target with quite so good an aim as Thane, Zaeed or Garrus, Samara was better at tracking and spotting targets than anyone and could do so at a remarkably long distance. She had, after all, tracked Morinth for a century or so. It was enough for Shepard to know she did not have to worry about her apparent disregard for stealth.

"Impressive." Samara eventually replied in comment to Shepard's story, then having stopped to scan the horizon turned a glance to Shepard: "But sad that your childhood was ended so abruptly. I can appreciate personally how suddenly the fragile picture of a perfect family can be shattered." She continued walking again.

Shepard half-smiled, half-winced. It was easy to forget sometimes, that Samara had not always been all that she was now, and that once upon a time she had a home, a mate, she had three daughters and she had idle dreams and the mundane worries of ordinary folk. She had laughed, been angered, she had cried and she had despaired. Shepard wondered about Samara's children, about Morinth at an early age... and how they must have felt as everything they had thought to expect from life had fallen to pieces around them, like it had for her. _"She was the strongest and smartest. She would not accept the injustice thrust upon her. She fought to the end. I am so proud of her Shepard."_ – Samara's words on Morinth after her death resounded in Shepard's mind... She shuddered.

"Life can be cruel." Shepard acknowledged in respect of all children whose fragile lives from such an early age were broken by things and people outside of their control. Herself, Samara's children, Jack, Kaidan... Truth was there were so many people she knew who ultimately shared some form of childhood trauma.

"Agreed. The code dictates a requirement for action to make life better whenever I am able. Let us hope that what we do today bodes well for _another_ little girl's future."

Shepard opened her mouth to speak, unsure as to whether she herself had just been referred to as the first little girl before 'another' or whether Samara might be referring to her own children or others she'd known by that. She clamped it shut again, as it seemed best not to enquire. It was possible, she imagined, that Samara considered her in some way to still be but a child in her eyes. Compared to Samara's near millennia long life lived, any human however old might appear very young indeed. But she was grateful for the subtly placed mental tug Samara had used to bring her back to here and now, to focus on the mission ahead and why she was doing it. She could almost sense without asking, that Samara had figured out more than she had spoken. She nodded to Samara:

"Let's more than hope: let's make _sure_ it does."

There was no more talking. Within the next ten minutes they reached the edge of the woods. They skirted around to the east at the last point in order to follow the hedgerow around to the back of the outbuildings, ready to spring the trap. The matching radio silence assured Shepard that so far, all was going to plan or the Blue Suns had no arrived yet. Thane would be in position by now, as would Kasumi – biding their time until each their appointed roles in this plan were played out.

They gambled then, crossing the fields against the hedgerow, on which direction the car or whatever vehicle the Blue Suns would be using to travel here would come from. They heard the whoosh of engines approaching and dived for cover. Grunt dived for shadows where the sheen of his own black armour would be lesser seen, Samara into the hedgerow itself, Shepard following Samara. _So. Time to pick up the pace._ They quickly darted the distance to the barns and made it just as Thane informed them they had just landed. Another notification (they were exiting the car, driver included) told Shepard the news she didn't want to hear: three Blue Suns – a Human, a Batarian and a Turian... but no Vido.

Vladimir meanwhile was doing what he had been told by Thane to do: being busy in one of the larger barns (with a rear exit) tending to a piece of machinery. Blue and white armours clattered into the building, their wearers little aware that a sniper now gazed down upon them, and that a genetically enhanced Krogan, an Asari Justicar and the galaxy's first Human SpecTRe, were about to be just behind them.

Approaching the barn, Shepard heard the discussion. They were shaking Vladimir for money that he was telling them he didn't have, and sounding increasingly distressed by it. Shepard rounded the corner, assault rifle cautiously at carry knowing that left and right of her, weapons were levelled at the party as she came at their backs with an announcement:

"What's going on here?" She asked, calmly. That was Vladimir's signal to back off, to hasten towards the exit at the back of the barn – something he did with great enthusiasm. The mercs turned with surprise, guns levelled. There were frowns – suspected recognition for a moment, then disbelief followed by:

"Who are _you_?" – That from the Batarian. _So he's the one in charge..._ thought Shepard.

"I'm Commander Shepard, Human SpecTRe." She purposefully tilted her head to the right, as Kelly had advised her to do if she wanted to face down a Batarian – something about that being a signal of assumed superiority."This is Grunt – a genetically enhanced Krogan, and Samara, an Asari Justicar." She gestured with a hand to her (visible) companions.

"And I'm a Prophet." Said the Batarian, and tilted _his_ head to the right.

"I don't _think_ she's lying... I recognise her..." That was more quietly from the Human.

"I thought Shepard was dead..?" – Queried the Turian.

"Shut up!" – That from the Batarian back at both of them, then to her: "What do you want anyway?"

Shepard smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "I was born on Mindoir – don't you know? One of my family's friends had ties to the people who owned this farm. Imagine my surprise when upon returning here, I find the farm has changed hands. More than that... I find a family who seem to be living in terror or something." The Turian and the Human looked at each other with worry. She continued: "Then _you_ walk in and suddenly I think I understand, and if you know my reputation, you'll appreciate I don't _like_ what I just heard going on."

"We bought this land fair and square twelve years ago," The Batarian unwittingly revealed his knowledge of and possible involvement in the arrangement from day one of it, "...and this family owed us plenty when we put them here. All we're doing is collecting on that debt."

"Oh are you?" Shepard's smile melted into something a lot more sinister. "Looks like racketeering to me. Looks like... something I could be _interested_ in... personally." She leaned back and folded her arms for theatrical effect around her pistol. "I don't like bullies. I _definitely_ don't like bullies on my own home turf and I sure as hell am not going to _stand by_ and let you disgrace the memory of the community, the community within which I was _raised,_ as you leave this family with little more than money enough to eat!" She raised her voice with that last part, and unfolded her arms. It had the desired effect: the three mercs each took a baby step backwards.

She herself took a step forward pointing an accusing finger at the Batarian: "Now, I want to know _who_ is responsible for starting this, because I want to have words with them. I will want  from them: concrete assurance that this situation is not going to continue. Is that clear? I want Vladimir and his child left in peace."

The Batarian narrowed his eyes at Shepard and in that pause – a thinking pause – he recovered his confidence: "We can deliver a message. But that's all." It was short, it was almost sharp, as if he'd measured up who she was and _still_ had ideas he could better her. Many a fool had made that assumption before, but this Batarian was a little different. Alarm bells began to ring in Shepard's brain – he was suddenly being far too calm, like he was more than just a little part in this game. She thought on that for a moment, recalling that Zaeed had told her the reason why he was killed was because he had disagreed with Vido recruiting the Batarians that now did most of his dirty work – his closest associates were now in fact _all_ Batarian. _Maybe this one knows Vido personally... Vido will know we are coming for him..._

"... You do that." She snarled, finally. "But I want a name – _your_ name, and I swear: one more visit from the Blue Suns or anyone else collecting money on your behalf and I will hunt you down and ensure this family gets a refund, _plus_ interest paid in _blood_." That at least rattled his cage – Batarians didn't sweat in the same way humans do, but his cheeks began to spot with moisture. "Are we clear?!" She yelled.

"Yes maam." The human and the turian chimed. Not the Batarian.

"My name..." The Batarian paused, looking Shepard in the eye as he answered: "...is Solem Dal'Serah." Shepard nodded in acknowledgement, pulling her jaw to one side and sucking her cheeks as if she were sucking something sour. She paused like that for the same length of time he had, before stepping sidewards to allow them space to exit in single file. They hesitated to pass Grunt and Samara who stood stoic and silent, staring at them with a cold glare, but she waved the three of them through with her gun and a jerk of her head with a sullen scowl. Watching them as they climbed into their car, she waited until they had departed so she would be out of their view before calling in.

 _And so it begins... but I don't like it. Suddenly I don't like this_ _at __all_ _._

* * *

REFERENCES:

The title for this chapter is a quote from Kosh, the Vorlon Ambassador in the episode "Chrysalis" – last episode of the first series of the TV show Babylon 5.

Paraphrased quotes from Shepard's parents came from the 2001-2003 film adaptations by Peter Jackson of J.R.R. Tolkein's 'The Lord Of The Rings' trilogy. Her father says a line similar to that said by Sam's "old Gaffer" whilst her mother says a line similar to that which Bilbo says upon handing the sword 'Sting', which glows blue in the presence of orcs or goblins, to Frodo.

The name 'KaMpande' comes from the Zulu King who famously led the Zulu nation to victory against the British in the Battle of Isandlwana – see the Wikipedia entry for Cetshwayo kaMpande for details.

According to the Mass Effect wikia there is an unidentified crewmember who shows up in military armour stationed to guard Legion when you first pick him up. I decided he would make a good double as a pilot for the Kodiak and liked the idea that I could come up with a name for him.

The little bit of advice that I purport Kelly Chambers to have told Shepard about how to handle Batarians comes from the cuture section of the Mass Effect wikia for Batarians.

Spoiler: The name Solem Dal'Serah is the name of an actual Mass Effect character – you can look him up if you really want to.


	9. Chapter 9 - In The Calm Before The Storm

~ Finding The Heart ~

Calm Before The Storm

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

There was little time. Thane had rounded up Vladimir and Uhuru and was in the process of taking them somewhere safe – the task with which he had been entrusted. Samara was going with them. She would fight to the death to protect little Uhuru at the very least and she was worth, by Shepard's reckoning, at least ten, maybe twenty armed Blue Suns mercenaries. Samara would be the visible bodyguard, Thane... the one that nobody stupid enough to come after Uhuru and her father, would even see - until it was too late.

Kasumi was now presumably in transit, leaving them a trail of bread crumbs to follow in the wake of the three Blue Suns Mercenaries that had visited Vladimir's farm. The mercenaries would have in mind a message – something _else_ Kasumi would be tracking should they send it rather than deliver it in person. The last person to receive that message was more than likely going to be the one Blue Sun they were actually hunting: Vido.

Grunt and Shepard had hopped back into the Kodiak and KaMpande set them on a course to rendezvous with the Normandy with all due haste, except that their course skirted a little towards the shuttle port... Only for about the length of time it would take the Blue Suns to get there, debark from their vehicle and get aboard their shuttle. Shepard held her breath that whole time, as did Zaeed, who dwelled silently on the seat opposite.

Alas the kodiak jerked up and sideways - course change: "No word from Kasumi. Redirecting to dock with the Normandy." - KaMpande barked in explanation to all onboard. If Vido had been waiting for them, Kasumi would have squawked, so when that window closed Shepard had known then that he wasn't there. She took a breath and let it go. _No such luck. Of course not. That would be too easy._

With still no news from Kasumi by the time they left atmosphere, and the departure of the Blue Suns vessel that had hosted the landing party on Mindoir noted, Shepard had no choice but to assume Vido was not aboard that vessel either... or that Kasumi had been caught. _Not likely._ Shepard reminded herself at this point that Kasumi was doing what she knew best how to do.

Kasumi had been in tighter spots, or so she had said. She had informed Shepard that she had, on occasion, travelled stowaway on any number of vessels... Amongst them from time to time even Blue Suns vessels like that one, although how she ever managed to stay hidden away in a fully occupied four person taxi required some imagination. Kasumi said she'd even visited Purgatory once, before it was destroyed, to meet a contact to get information about the whereabouts and keeping of some special Turian artefact she was planning to steal... And she'd done it right under their noses without them even knowing she was there.

As plans went, so far this one could be going worse, except for that Batarian. _Solem Dal'Serah._ Something had felt wrong about him, and she hated being right... As was apparent when upon getting into the Kodiak she had straight away asked Zaeed about him and Zaeed had looked up at her with a cold, doubtful stare:

"Vido's right-hand man. Fucking fake figure head of the whole damn organisation." Zaeed had said and shook his head. "Bastard's got to know." His face was set like stone, propped on criss-crossed fingers, arms propped on his knees as he leaned forward.

"How much? How much would he know?" She pressed now, in absence of the need to focus on anything else.

Zaeed shrugged and scowled at the floor. "Way I figure it," – he fisted one hand and rammed it into the palm of the other – "...he was probably the one who gave Vido the idea to put a bullet in my head."

Shepard thought about that for a moment, then asked: "Meaning what?"

"It was round about the time that Vido met him and recruited him into the Blue Suns that me and _Vido_ stopped seeing eye-to-eye... If he was there at Vladimir's farm, he sure as Hell knows why _you_ were there – I'd bet he knows who Alice was, who she was to _me_... God damn Son-of-a-" - A fist landed on the door of the Kodiak with a thud.

Shepard jumped a little - it was quite close to the 'open' button, and she was not about to cheerfully test the Kodiak's emergency override systems in the cold dark vacuum of space. _Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt._ Along with running through a woodland at dusk chased by the hazy shadows of slavers, being jettisoned out into space and suffocating to death was definitely ranked high on her list of worst nightmares.

"Zaeed! Focus!" She snapped at him. She settled her breathing and heart-rate down with a few, well-practised breaths. She'd had to learn that trick, being faced with a view of space nearly every day since her resurrection.

He didn't finish his sentence, interrupted by that reprimand and perhaps a little confused by her sudden reaction. Instead he just glared at her for a moment before his face relaxed a little (well it returned to a more normal scowl) as he looked away. Another moment passed and he looked back at her with cool composure. Shepard rested her helmeted head on a half-closed fist before taking on a softer urgency in the tone of her voice:

"OK, think." As the worry set in: "What's his play going to be?"

Zaeed pulled a face. "Chances are, he's going to know we're coming for Vido. Chances are, he suspects _I'm_ with you. Chances are wherever he's going now, he's gonna know we're following or he's gonna _think_ he knows we are. Wherever he goes from here, it'll be a trap that's waiting for us at the other end."

"How would he assume we'd be able to track him?" Shepard frowned.

"He won't know _how_ we're doing it, but he'll imagine it's possible. He's an ex-slaver, and he didn't get to where he is now by assuming people couldn't track him. Suspicious. Always suspicious of everyone and everything – _that_ bastard." Zaeed ground his teeth together. Shepard meanwhile was glad of her tinted faceplate when the word ' _slaver'_ hit a nerve somewhere in her gut and stayed there for half a second like a chunk of lead.

"Think he's bleated out a warning to Vido?" Shepard's frown deepened.

"Probably. That bastard's got codewords for his codewords. Procedures and back-ups for everything." Zaeed's jaw clamped shut.

Shepard imagined that Solem Dal'Serah was the reason that in ten years, it wasn't until Zaeed met _her_ that he had even come close to nailing Vido. Nearing the Normandy Shepard pulled off her helmet and gloves, and raked her hands from her face back over her skull, wishing she could pull from it with her bare fingers the headache now forming there.

 _Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear._

Still good news came, too. KaMpande chimed in to say that EDI had informed him that at least their industrious thief was alive and well, evidenced by a tight-beam communication of a series of galactic co-ordinates along with the code-phrase _"It's going to be a long ride."_ That meant she had not yet determined Vido's whereabouts, but that the co-ordinates she'd been sending signified the route the Blue Suns vessel – a Z20 series transport - presently planned to execute. The best they could do now would be to follow them, quietly, keeping enough distance that they would not be detected. The course that Kasumi had charted and sent them seemed legitimate enough, but nevertheless confirmed Shepard's worst fears: they were going to have to take that long leap from Balor to Yakawa after all.

They would have to stop to refuel, and there was no way of doing _that_ without being detected by anyone. They'd have to squawk their ID to gain access to any of the fuelling stations along the way, and she didn't put it past Vido – if Zaeed was right and he knew they were coming – to have someone listening out for such information on Shepard/Zaeed's whereabouts. Omega Nebula to Caleston Rift – refuelling either at the depot in Sahrabarik System (Omega Nebula) or the one in Balor System (Caleston Rift). From there it was on to Yakawa System at sublight from Balor System.

"EDI confirm course co-ordinates - they end at Kobayashi, am I right?"

"Yes Commander. Kobayashi was thought to be an attractor of Vorcha and Krogan unscrupulous opportunists, but oddly no Blood Pack activity had been noted in this region of space in recent months." EDI chimed. "It is possible the Blue Suns exercise control over that area. Whilst there are a statistically high number of distress calls that have originated from the vicinity of Kobayashi, there is no record of responsibility for attacks on vessels there."

Meaning somebody was being rather careful about that. Kobayashi was also conveniently out of the effective range of Maskawa law enforcement authorities. _Cagey bastard._ _Even if we had a reason to get them involved, they'd never get there in time to be of use to us._

"Great. So no hope of stirring up a little mercenary-on-mercenary rivalry as a back-up distraction, then. Do Mordin or Miranda have any suggestions?" Shepard clutched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and thumb.

"Dr. Solus and Ms. Lawson have been going over alternative routes but the need to refuel constrains our options. They suggest refuelling at the station in Omega system with stealth systems inactive, then reactivate stealth systems again during relay to Caleston Rift. That perhaps may give cause for the Blue Suns to wonder whether or not we are following them or heading off on some other mission vectored from Omega."

"Not bad, although I still don't like how limited our options are. Thank you EDI, KaMpande tells me we'll be back with you shortly. Have Joker lay in the course Mordin and Miranda recommend and have everyone meet me in the briefing room as soon as we get aboard. We'll be leaving immediately."

"Yes Commander." The telltale click of speakers turning off sounded as EDI closed the call.

Shepard turned to Zaeed. "So we assume it's a trap. Best guess: Do you think Vido will be smart enough to stay clear of the trap and watch from afar, or do you think his arrogance will have him want to be a part of it, or at least watching from somewhere nearby?"

Zaeed pulled a sneer and grunted. "He's smart but he's arrogant enough that if he _thinks_ he's got all corners covered, he'll take the shot himself. If he thinks I'm with you, maybe he might just do that. He's probably still sore about Zorya." He smirked with a small amount of satisfaction.

"You might end up having to be bait, then. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Let's hope he decides he's got something to prove and gets personally involved, with any luck that'll give us something we can hang him with."

* * *

"Alright. So we know what we have to do." Shepard pushed off the briefing room table. "Let's get to it." With that, the room began to empty, except for the man who had become her perpetual shadow as of late, who remained to offer a perpetual scowl to anyone who looked his way. Shepard walked over to where he was leaning against the wall, arms folded.

"It's not going to be easy, but we're doing everything we can." The words she spoke were ones that she would ordinarily have offered, but the tone in her voice came out pleading. She wasn't sure why she was trying so earnestly to offer him consolation, in a tone that implied she needed forgiveness for failure. A second thought on that and she wondered if her subconscious perhaps worried that the mission would have gone more smoothly if she hadn't had that one lapse in concentration... Which of course was nonsense and she knew it, but here she was, feeling guilty anyway. There was an awkward silence then, while she waited for Zaeed to respond. To her surprise he looked up with sheer exhaustion and met her eyes with something she had not expected: pity.

"I'm sorry." The words seemed to damn near choked him. He swallowed. "I uh..." He swallowed again, "... Imagine it wasn't easy – you going back to Mindoir again. You OK?"

She raised her brows – surprise being her honest reaction, shock being the next. Had he actually noticed that squeak in her voice, and reckoned the rightful cause of it? It was like a knife going in and twisting - that sudden emotional nakedness and concern for involuntary emotional self-transparency... All while jerking her back to a reality she tried to bury at every opportunity. She'd looked away the split second her brain had worked out where that sentence had been going - instinctive defence - but the look on his face that she'd caught in that moment she now recalled with comfort. It made the words, and what they did to her, a little easier to accommodate - enough that she dared to lift her eyes again to meet his. She took a breath, and collected herself.

"Umn..." She shrugged. "I have to be." She hadn't meant to be that cold. She massaged the back of her neck and looked away again, trying to find more words. "Talk about it over coffee? We've got some hours to kill - I should really be on duty for a few before hitting the sack but I figure I can hide in my cabin, barring emergencies."

He shrugged, "Sure." and pushed off the wall. They fetched drinks and headed on up - the pair of them worn out and with threadbare tempers, albeit each for different reasons. They sat down on her sofa - each choosing a side of the coffee table of their own to face, nursing the mugs in their hands. Both stared off into nowhere ahead of them.

A few breaths passed and Shepard knew she had to start... somewhere... so after a few sips of near-scolding fluid she tried:

"I told you I was sixteen when the slavers came. I never told you the details."

"Go on." Zaeed spoke quietly, and spared her direct eye contact. It helped, but this was still difficult. Shepard sighed. Took another breath. Sighed. Took another breath. Sighed again. Took another breath, held it in this time...

"They hunted me for two days in the woods edging my parents' farm. It was a place not too different from Vladimir's, actually." She set her mug down with a shrug. "They came to the farm on an autumn afternoon just like the one we had in the graveyard when you went to see Alice's grave."

Zaeed winced a little, and took a sip of his own as he lowered his eyes to the table – as good as an apology, an acceptance of what that must have meant for her returning to Mindoir this time round. Shepard too, stared towards the table as she continued:

"We heard the cries from the town and villages nearby – they'd hit them first – and my mother told me to run as a shuttle started to approach the farm. I heard shouting and screaming. I think my mother had a pistol nana gave to her because I heard a gun being fired too close to have been from the shuttle itself."

Shepard coughed and swallowed in an attempt to unblock the words from her throat.

"I ran. A little later the thought hit me that my parents were probably dead. After that, I ran as fast as I damn well could." Another sigh, then reaching for her mug: "As the dusk rolled in, that's when they had to have been the closest to catching me. It's something I still have nightmares about." She shrugged and took a longer sip from her mug, letting one hand drop to dangle idly off her knee.

There was a prolonged silence she hadn't even noticed until she heard the sound of gloved fists clenching that were not her own. She stared into her coffee. Then laughed a dark laugh –

"Actually... funny thing is the second night I was still running but it wasn't slavers chasing me: it was a team of Alliance soldiers. They'd caught up with the slavers chasing me - the idiots got stranded when their transport left without them. The Alliance soldiers killed them in the struggle. I think they managed to get from one of them that they had actually been chasing _me_ and not just fleeing before they died."

Zaeed was frowning. She guessed the question on his mind and answered it with a shrug: "I don't know, maybe the slavers figured catching me would give them leverage as a hostage or something because they'd carried on chasing me long after their shuttle had abandoned them. Anyway, from that point on, those Alliance soldiers were just trying to catch up to me to rescue me. The fact that I evaded the slavers for one night and then _them_ for another, is one of the reasons Anderson told me later that I got into N-School."

"N-School?" Zaeed looked at her quizzically.

"Sorry. That's just what we used to call it. N7 school. It's a pet name for 'Systems Alliance Interplanetary Combatives Training' - the brass call it ICT." Zaeed nodded to that, took a sip from his own cup and inhaled the steam wafting up from it as if it were pure oxygen.

"That's pretty damn impressive for a farmer's daughter. I'm not surprised ICT wanted you."

Shepard smiled a sad smile and stared into her coffee again. "My uhh... parents may have been farmers, but my _grandmother_ was a ranger in the old colonial service. She'd tried to teach my mother everything she ever knew although my mother never really had an aptitude for it. Plus my parents met early on in life and fell in love and my _dad_ was a paragon of pacifism. Still... My mother was an oddball - she always valued expertise and was anything but blind to nana's. She had this belief that a person should always seek to recognise expertise wherever and in whoever or whatever they could find it. She believed we should always try to learn and pass on what we learn whenever we can, because you'd never know when that expertise might come in useful." Shepard chuckled. "She was such a pain in the ass. I had to learn  everything at school – didn't matter if I liked a subject or not."

Her expression darkened again. "Anyhow my mother still tried to learn from nana how she did the things she could do, and the motivations and theory behind her skills, even when mom was no good at actually acting them out herself. Then when they had me, she insisted on passing on as much as she could remember that _nana_ had taught _her_ to _me_. She said knowledge gave us choices, and that although it hadn't been her choice to follow in her mother's footsteps, that she'd always respected her mother for equipping her with the knowledge that she _could_ have chosen that life, if she'd wanted to."

Shepard smiled and looked up into the starscape above: "She'd get this far-off look in her eye and tell me how nana had told her this or that... But how nana had purposefully never given her an opinion on what she should do in life – just that she'd be happy so long as my mother made her _own_ choice, stayed true to herself, and thought carefully enough about what she wanted to ensure that whatever it was she went into, it was something she really could do for a lifetime." Shepard took in and let go a breath, along with a few more sips of hot coffee.

"Well I think begin to understand why you have such a stick up your ass about some things." Zaeed chuckled a little, then more soberly: "Sounds like your nan was really something." – He wasn't lying either. Before he'd met Shepard, he would never have believed that such a soul existed in the galaxy. The thought _also_ occurred to him that by the time Shepard was born, he'd have been old enough to have been dating her mother and to have an inappropriate crush on her grandmother, if he'd ever met them. He put that thought back in its box and told it to stay there.

"She was. I'm sorry I never really got to know her. Just after mom and dad got married, nan went off to help found the human part of the agrarian colony on Asteria. She died in the wilderness a year or two after I was born. They think she must have had an accident whilst out scouting for suitable expansion grounds and couldn't reach her emergency oxygen supply before she fell unconscious." Shepard shrugged, "She died doing what she loved." ...then suffered an involuntary flashback of herself arguably dying the exact same way, and having learned that asphyxiation was not fast or gentle death some people would have you believe.

Zaeed nodded slowly. They sat and sipped their coffee awhile. A few sips later he twitched and asked:

"You said your parents were killed?"

It was an odd thing to question but Shepard shrugged, sparing him a lost look for half a second before going back to staring into her coffee.

"I never _saw_ what happened to them, but I knew my mother would have fought to the death. When the Alliance came they found two residue marks outside the farmhouse – human remains, two bodies. So I guess they resisted and were killed for it. To be honest with you I'm kinda glad. Not everyone was so lucky – I think I told you about Talitha."

Zaeed paused in recollection of that story, then nodded grimly, taking a sip from his own cup and inhaling the steam from off of it.

"Loose anyone else important?"

"On Mindoir? Apart from my parents... not really. I really only had one friend at school - my best friend: Hiro Kohaku Itsuki..." _Am I really going to tell him about Hiro..?_ "...His parents were taken. He escaped - he was on his way home from music practice through the farmland on foot, so he wasn't worth looking for."

"Music 'practice'?" Zaeed raised an eyebrow.

"He was an outstanding musician – a prodigy – even at the age of 16. He'd been off with his tutor practising for some big off-world concert but had decided to walk home that day. His parents owned the farm next to ours which meant it was a _long_ , isolated walk."

Shepard frowned and looked down. "He heard the screams coming up the valley but he was closer to home by then so he just tried to get there faster. He saw a transport fly overhead towards his family farm and he ran... but he didn't make it in time." She shrugged, "Not that it mattered. Turned out they hadn't been home – they'd gone into town to do some shopping. They were amongst the first to be taken, loaded onto the first transport, gone by the time the Alliance arrived. They never got them back."

"Why didn't he go and find you?" Zaeed frowned.

"He did. Or he tried. He had no idea where his parents were. It was several hours walk from their farm to ours but since global communications got knocked out he came looking. I think though that by the time he got there our house was already in flames and my parents were already little more than a pool of organic residue on the driveway." She said that so coldly she shocked herself. It merited a pause for breath, and another sip of coffee.

"He said he saw the transport circling over the woods, but had no idea that they were looking for _me_. The transport then high-tailed it when the Alliance showed up. They spotted Hiro and it was Hiro who put the Alliance onto the fact I might still be out there and confirmed that the slavers hadn't just been trying to run from Alliance capture."

"He was so glad to see me when they brought me back..." Shepard gulped the sentiment down with a grimace, for it was bitter and painful to recall. "The authorities auctioned off our parents' places, sorted out a nice apartment in the town for us to live in, together. We requested that." Shepard snuffled and her eyes watered but she couldn't cry. She actually _couldn't_ cry. She shrugged and added quietly: "We were all we had."

She sniffed and shook her head. "Hiro... had had such promise... I used to sit and listen to him play the piano for _hours_. It was like magic - he could make you feel joy, make you laugh, make you cry. It was like he was weaving magic with every note." She forced a smile, and regretted it when a tear fell from her cheek.

She swallowed and frowned: "But he never got over the loss of his parents. At first he composed music, as if it were the only thing he could do, but never a note from his fingers from that day on was a happy one. He hung on every report, every bulletin, hoping for some news that his parents were alive and coming home. That never happened. A year later he started taking stims to stop from sleeping to stave off the nightmares in which he imagined what was happening to them. Said he could feel it, see it with his waking eyes. Worse was when he dreamed they'd come home then he'd wake up and everything was wrong again." Shepard grimaced.

"He never forgave the Alliance for not showing up in time to save them, whereas to _me_ they were heroes. We argued a lot. He stopped performing, stopped practising music. Then he stopped going out. He trashed his instruments in fits of temper. He barely ate. It was all I could do just to watch. _Nothing_ I could say or do consoled him." She paused, aware of the relevance to her present company of what she was about to say:

"His... addiction got to mattering to him more than my trying to be there for him. In the end, I walked away." Another swallow. "I joined the Alliance. But when I came back to visit, he'd committed suicide. I went back to the Alliance after the funeral, and never looked back. Well, not until now at least." She tilted her head. "He's buried in the same cemetery as Alice."

Zaeed's head ducked and he let out this exhaustive sigh. "I'm... sorry." He said without looking at her.

Shepard thought to herself: _Two apologies in one day?_ She thought to herself, _This Vido stuff must be really getting to him..._ That second apology was almost enough to make her smile. Almost. Zaeed, meanwhile, had thought of his own:

 _She saw her_ _best __friend_ _in a state like that and walked away. And that being despite the fact I get the feeling they'd've been more than 'just friends' if the numbskull had just bloody paid attention to what was right in front of him. Yet she then saw_ _me_ _in that state – not even a friend – and instead of walking away, she goddamned_ _kissed_ _me and took me to her bed. She's like one of those damned Asari hundred-year finger puzzles. I think my brain'll turn inside out before I figure her out..._

The telltale of EDI activating the speakers sounded: "Garrus Vakarian is asking if it would be possible to speak with you, Commander."

"Garrus?" Shepard frowned, "Did he say what about?"

"No Commander, only that he wanted to speak to you in person when you've got a moment."

Shepard sighed. "Alright, tell him I'm on my way." Then to Zaeed: "Probably something to do with the group assignments knowing Garrus. Shouldn't take long." She finished her coffee and stood up to leave.

Zaeed looked up at her: "I'll go over the plans myself whilst you're gone. Mind if I use your terminal?"

Shepard shrugged: "EDI can secure you a log-in and give you access to whatever you need, that alright EDI?"

"Already done, Commander." EDI really was a work of art at times.

"Thanks EDI." Then to Zaeed: "I should go."

"Take these down with you if you're going." Zaeed pointed to her mug and offered his, having downed the last of its contents. Shepard nodded, took the mugs and left for the Forward Battery.

* * *

"Garrus, I have to go down there with him."

"No you don't!" Garrus paced the floor and pointed a finger at her. "You don't owe him, Shepard!"

"But I'm the only one who can stop him if he goes off the rails. I'm the only one he'll listen to." She took a breath and sighed. "I'm the only one... who cares enough to stop him from doing something he has to live with later." She stared at Garrus, sober and honest. It was what she _didn't_ say in that instant that mattered. What she hadn't quite the confidence to state aloud, was that Zaeed _could_ regret, _could_ wish he hadn't done something – like blowing up the refinery on Zorya (she hoped) – and that she was getting closer to bringing him into that line of thinking.

"Then _I'm_ taking up a sniper position. I'll shoot the bastard before anything happens." Meaning Vido, not Zaeed, although he did have to think about who he meant after he'd said that.

"What you'll _do_ is  follow orders, and as it happens I do want you to take up that sniper position – wherever you can get to. But I don't want you to shoot unless it's on my order. I have to let him step over the line a little, I may have to let him make a mistake, a small one, if I'm ever going to point out to him why a bigger mistake that might follow after that one was right for me to stop." She looked at Garrus, looked him right in the eye and his eyes flickered then. _...The only one who cares enough to stop him from doing something he has to live with later._ Suddenly it hit home what she meant, and he ducked his head away – silent acknowledgement and shameful remembrance: he knew she'd once given him the same courtesy... with Sidonis.

"Alright. Fine." He looked at her, but held half a breath in, as if readying a 'but' that subsequently passed as a quiet hiss through his teeth. She could still see resistance brimming in his eyes. She lifted her chin – an _order_ was what that body-language said:

"If things start to look rough, I want you to break radio silence and call Kasumi to you. She will help you carve a path to where you think you need to be. _Don't_ do it alone." That, because she knew he was thinking about it. "I'll have Jack with me, Tali will pair with Legion and make sure we have an escape route out."

"I remember the brief, Shepard." Garrus glared at her with cold, blue eyes.

"Alright. Then you _follow_ it." She glared back.

There was a while they just stared at each other, until finally Garrus sighed and paced away. Putting his hands on his hips, he said with his head half turned towards her over his shoulder: "I just don't want to see after all you've accomplished, you throwing your life away for some ex-bounty hunter with an axe to grind."

"That's not fair Garrus. That's not fair on me and it's not fair on him. Even without Zaeed, I'd care what happens to that little girl. I know what it's like to have my life fall apart before I'd even begun to live it. And Zaeed is a better person than you give him credit for." Garrus took a step back, took that in, savoured the bitterness that came with that small reprimand.

She was right in what she said and he _knew_ it, but she was wrong, too. There was no way to explain it, but he just had this unerring suspicion that Zaeed was going to bring her pain. But now, no matter what, he couldn't help her in that. Not anymore. Zaeed had driven a wedge between them, maybe intentionally, maybe not, but it was there. She wasn't about to listen to him. It was as if time had turned back and she saw him in this moment as she once did back when they first met: as a young eggling quick to judge and quick to deal out judgement.

Perhaps she was right? No. Garrus was _not_ that short-fused youngster anymore, but _all_ of his patience-tempered, honed and rebalanced instincts were still telling him the same thing: that Zaeed would hurt her. However, that... _that_ was a fact that from now on, it was clear he would have to keep to himself.

He sighed: "Alright. Maybe that was a low blow. But I'll be there if you need me." - And he sincerely meant that last part, come whatever hell awaits. With that, Shepard turned heel and left. The doors closed, he stared at his console, and he vehemently _wished_ that calibrating the Thanix Cannon would be an adequate distraction for the next however many hours he was to be stuck in here before all hell finally broke loose on-mission.

REFERENCES:

I chose 'Hiro' because I know of many anime and game characters who have that name or similar, and because it reflects in some ways the English word 'hero' which in my story I use with depressing irony for a character who was 'great/big' (the meaning of 'hiro' in Japanese) in many ways but lacked the internal strength to be great/big in the ways that make Shepard a 'hero' by the English definition. Hiro as a character is a fragile and wonderful person who could not bare the burden of sorrow of what had befallen him and his family.

I chose 'Kohaku' because I love all things dragon. Spirited Away is one of my favourite films and anyone who knows the character Haku's true name will understand I'm sure. Kohaku, from what I can gather, means 'Amber' in Japanese. Coincidentally, you might recall an Admiral Kohaku in the first game? Perhaps there is some relation there... It sure would make for a tragedy, don't you think? Poor family.

So lastly I hunted out Japanese surnames and found one – 'Itsuki' is supposed to mean 'tree'. Put it together - Hiro Kohaku Itsuki and you have 'great amber tree'. That's something that conjures up images of beauty in my mind, which is what I want the reader to appreciate about Shepard's childhood friend: the idea that Shepard was in awe of a beauty and grace in his talents... Things she herself could never imitate. I want the reader to appreciate how frustrated she was by the apparent trade-off between beauty and grace versus fragility... what made the difference between the two of them in how they coped with their shared ordeals. In some ways this is why she spent her life trying to protect what she considers to be the easily-breakable people whom she believes are responsible for filling the galaxy with much of its wonder: she's trying to make up for the one time she failed to do that.

Any of that make sense?!

That Hiro began to believe he could see his parents' fate 'with his waking eyes' is a nod and reference to Frodo's endurance as ring-bearer once inside Mordor in J.R.R. Tolkein's 'The Lord Of The Rings'. In Hiro's mind, progressively, he became 'naked in the dark'.

I randomly decided on the designation of "Z20 series" for the Blue Suns transport Kasumi hides aboard because I wanted to give a nod to the famed Chinese military strategist and philosopher; Sun Tzu. That said, it sounded somehow familiar, so I googled and discovered that Z20 – or rather "Zhi-20" – is actually also a type of medium lift Chinese helicopter likely carrying about 11 people plus equipment. Or at least so says Wikipedia about the American Black Hawk helicopter it is supposedly based.


	10. Chapter 10 - The Hunt

~ Finding The Heart ~

The Hunt

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

More contingency planning during her on-shift, while the Normandy made its way through refuelling at Sahrabarik and then back out again through the mass relay, had left Shepard quiet exhausted. As time passed it got a little easier, but diving back into the fray straight after going to Mindoir again took more focus than she wanted it to. She still felt more edgy than usual, and unwanted thoughts stalked the back of her mind. Harder yet to focus after Zaeed had _asked_ if she was alright.

 _Zaeed. Not Garrus._

If _Zaeed_ knew she was upset then that meant that either someone _told_ him, or it was obvious for all to see (which bothered her immensely). Garrus, on the other hand - somebody that she might expect to notice even subtle changes in her behaviour and on occasion ask such a question - hadn't asked. Instead he'd  argued with her about mission details? _That_ stung a little. Yet even just the question 'Are you alright?' was enough to spook Shepard:

 _Why? What am I showing that makes it look like I'm_ _not_ _coping?_

Whether she was or she wasn't, was, in one way, irrelevant: her _perceived_ state of being mattered, and had to be controlled – for crew morale and adversaries alike. Finding out you were _leaking information_ as to your personal, emotional state, was no joke. People like Shepard don't leak information unintentionally, unless it's information they don't know they have... and even then they are burdened more than most to be aware, and consciously so, of all the information in their position. This presented a paradox because the truth was, if she _were_ to try to be aware and conscious of what she knew about herself, she would have to admit that she _wasn't_ alright and _do_ something about it.

But you can't heal trauma if you're constantly experiencing new ones to add to the list. You can only heal if you can take a break – one long enough to make what you've been through appear to be the lesser influence in your life in retrospect, and that usually translates as a measure of time... First equal to the time during which you've been subject to trauma, so as to shake the mind from the notion that experiencing trauma is the norm that your life will default back to, then the same amount of time again before you have actually recovered and might feel prepared to deal with new trauma... however it is caused – accidental incident or of your own volition, e.g. taking on a job or a new responsibility that might bring you stress or trauma.

 _Or at least that's what Kelly once told me. So for me, that'd be what – a fifteen year break in a military rehabilitation leisure facility living a normalised but carefully engineered-to-be-active-but-not-stressful life, when in reality they only give you two? Then another fifteen years living out a normal life before having the [mythical] choice of whether or not I want to go back to fighting the Reapers?_ She laughed at herself in dark humour, silently. _It turned out really well last time I took a 'break' from service, didn't it?_

True, it had done her good to talk about it, but she now felt drained – like when you go without proper sleep for four days then get a solid eight hours on the fifth... You wake up relaxed but almost dizzyingly tired. A hot shower and a meal had surely helped, but now it was back into the fire and the chase to hold Vido – scum that he was – accountable for his crimes and to end his contribution toward galactic division. At least _that_ felt like something she _could_ do, an achievement of which she felt capable. It was small victories like that one if she could pull it off, that were what helped her hold together and keep going.

The overhead speaker in her cabin clicked on: "Coming up on the drop into Balor System - Commander - just thought you'd like to know. ETA: ten minutes."

"Thanks Joker. I'll be right there." She closed down her terminal, put on her combat armour and headed down to the Command Deck. She nodded to Kelly as she walked on through CIC, and passed a few heads busy at the boards. She heard the lift doors working behind her and stopped short of the airlock – she knew who it would be. They shared a habit, she and Miranda, of wanting to be in the cockpit whenever they made the drop into a system whilst on a mission. Miranda caught up briskly and joined her.

The Normandy had stealthed after departure from the Omega Relay. They were about to drop into Balor in as great a haste as the Normandy could muster without undue strain. They were actually in no great hurry to get to Kobayashi, having decided to delay their arrival and instead play the game of _pretending_ they could have gone somewhere else. The refuelling station at Omega was assumed to have its spies. _So let them wonder if we were truly following, let them wonder why we're not hot on their tail with crisis immanent when it doesn't happen for a while._ In the meantime they could sit and silently listen to events unfolding across the region through comms chatter and pick up any breadcrumbs left by Kasumi.

It was a risky play: waiting. One that could, on the flip side, allow Vido all the more time to get a defence organised or to pull a disappearing act... _Except I have a feeling he won't be running this time._ Shepard was starting to get a feel for Vido's style. Oh he'd hide and scheme and manipulate from behind the scenes, but she imagined that at the end of it, he would want to be present to gloat about it. He'd wanted to be there to pull the trigger when he arranged Zaeed's execution. He had the type of ego that _needed_ to make a display of showing _he_ was superior to you, that _he_ was the one who had beaten you.

Still... She also got a sense that confrontation was something he never faced without an ace up his sleeve, and that worried her. He was smart. Smarter than Zaeed she'd wager, in many ways... and more opportunistic. Zaeed said he had balked at dealing with 'terrorists' while Vido hadn't. Shepard knew all too well that morals limited actions, meaning there could be things Vido could do that she could not – like leaving a refinery of his own workers to burn to death while he got away because she could not abandon them, being but one example of how such a scenario might play out.

She steeled her resolve by reminding herself that Kasumi would surely warn them if she thought they were running into something they couldn't handle. _If she was still alive._ No... Not even Vido himself would know how to track Kasumi, or even know she were there. Kasumi had spent most of her  entire life invisible. So they might yet be able to cheat him out of some of his best efforts to prepare, if they could rightly guess how long to wait to make him wonder and gather intelligence, but not so long that he would be dug in and well-fortified.

"Dropping into Balor System in three... two... one..." On Joker's mark the Balor relay caught them and bled off their velocity, leaving them stationary but for the thrusters he activated milliseconds after the drop. The mind perceived deceleration from high velocity to full stop based on visual cues, and every time they made the drop a body went taught and the magical transition from greater-than-lightspeed to near-stationary _without_ a physical jolt left you feeling quite queasy. Except Joker never seemed bothered by it, which might be one of the reasons he was so good a pilot.

"Drift under 5000k." He chirped cheerfully.

"How far are we behind that transport now?" Shepard asked, gripping the back of his seat as she swallowed against the nausea.

"About one hour." Joker remained unperturbed. "We should be able to make that up by half an hour during transit to Yakawa." He'd managed _that_ much of a gain on them already, given that the Normandy had had to delay for fuel _and_ had taken a longer route than surely that transport would have taken as a result of where they'd gone to refuel.

"Nice work." She patted the back of his seat, then pulled a face: "Do I want to know how many suns you skimmed in your course plotting to make up that time?"

"Mmmm... Probably not." He smirked smugly and carried on tapping away at the boards.

Miranda's voice chipped in from behind. "Based on the specifications of the Z20 series transport they were using, assuming it hasn't changed course – or that Kasumi has had to change ship without telling us – she should've reached Kobayashi by now." Miranda folded her arms. "We should hear from her soon."

"Coming up on package-delivery point now Commander." Of course before the mission started they had no idea where they would be going - no network of spies upon whose intelligence they could rely (that a ship within a larger organisation like the Alliance, might), whilst asking favours of the Illusive Man did was no longer a good idea. Certainly they had no idea which Mass Relays they would be using, so they'd had to do things the old fashioned way – dug up from all those old history lessons about sublight trading drops and pick-ups... From back when Sol System and the politics of their own species had been all humans had to worry about...

Joker had given to Kasumi, for every single mass relay: pilot's-precision co-ordinates for locations _just_ off the standard shipping lanes, and a timetable of time frames for when the Normandy _might_ reach those co-ordinates and then sit waiting (for a limited window of time) for her communication. Knowing the exact location and timeframes for a ship's destination was essential if she wanted to send a secure, tight-beam transmission to that ship over a long distance.

Those windows of opportunity were calculated under the assumption that they'd be spanning outwards from their position of departure (that being Mindoir) and last contact point with Kasumi. The further a Mass Relay was from their origin point of Mindoir, the greater the chance for different Mass Relays to be used by the Normandy to get there and the greater the complexity and hazard in trying to guess where and when they would be at any given location. So at Balor, there were _many_ possible timeframes the Normandy might be expected to arrive at those co-ordinates, but less chance that they would actually be there for any particular one.

As a result, an agreement had been made on a limited number of course plots that the Normandy would be restricted to using for transit to each mass relay next in line leaving Freyr System (including back again, if Vido had, for example, been hiding right under their noses). Shepard was never more glad of EDI's help when it came to that – pinpointing an entire timetable of places and times and making sure there were no mistakes in where they were meant to wait and at what time.

"How's our window?" They had heard nothing from Kasumi during the package-delivery window set for Omega, so they assumed the transport had taken the more direct route from Freyr System: jumping straight from the Pylos Nebula mass relay in Nariph System to the Caleston Rift mass relay in Balor. Shepard was painfully aware that wherever they ended up, they would likely be fighting anything and everything the Blue Suns could pull together, and that she'd be fighting on their home ground. _Sun Tzu would be shaking his head for sure,_ she imagined, if they went at it with no further inside intelligence input from Kasumi.

"Package delivery point reached, we are fifteen minutes early." It was EDI who answered.

"OK. Keep an ear out but if we don't hear from her within the window, we wait for the next one." Then to Miranda: "Assuming you still think it's a smart idea to hold off on our assault?"

"Making Vido guess is good. We could do with waiting until Kasumi gets in touch regardless. We can't afford to go in there blind." It was the uncomfortable truth, and if Kasumi _didn't_ give them something to work with, the plan to take out Vido was looking like more and more of a rescue operation for Kasumi – assuming they wouldn't just outright kill her... _Not likely... She would never get caught. Not Kasumi._

Shepard passed the time waiting at her console in CIC, catching up on little bits of work that wanted her approval or acknowledgements. Ten minutes or so passed into the window she paced back into the cockpit, as apparently had Miranda, too. Shepard spared a look at Miranda and asked:

"Think she's OK?"

"Did anyone check if we have parts missing?" – That, from Joker, got a scowl from Shepard, then she turned her glance back over her shoulder to Miranda, who answered:

"I have faith in her abilities." Miranda shrugged: "The Illusive Man would never have suggested you recruit her if he didn't think her capable of doing what you've asked her to do. Such missions were not unforeseen when he made his recruitment recommendations – of that I'm sure. I was the one who had to draw up an assessment of their capabilities in the context of scenarios he suggested."

Shepard thought about that a moment, nodded in acknowledgement and then turned to Joker:

"Joker prep the shuttle for launch just in case we have to change our minds. Have Officer KaMpande standing by."

"Aye Commander. I'll hold off on prepping the engines as that could shorten the time we can stay stealthed but I'll fire her up the moment we think we're about to use her." He tapped away at a few keys.

"Good idea." Shepard nodded, leaning on his chair-back again.

Then, just when Shepard was starting to get a little worried Joker announced abruptly: "Getting a transmission." Breaths were taken in... "It's Kasumi." ...and let out again. A few button presses later:

"What's it say?" Shepard couldn't help her impatience.

"Just running it through our coding translator now Commander." – From Joker, then from EDI:

"Kasumi says that Vido has gone to ground in a formerly derelict habitat dome on K03 – the third moon that orbits Kobayashi. There's a decoy on K02 meant to draw you there and a thermonuclear automated self-destruct device for that habitat should anyone other than Blue Suns personnel enter. Kasumi warns that there may be workers and families within that habitat."

 _I have a whole company of bloodthirsty bastards behind me ready to kill or be killed on my command._ That was what she once heard Vido claim to Zaeed on Zorya. Was Vido above using civilians as meat-shields..? She doubted it. Shepard scowled and noted:

"Bet that bastard plans to use meat-shields if we don't fall for that decoy. Might have to send a second team to sort that out – don't want Vido holding anybody hostage on K02 whilst he escapes out the back door on K03." She sighed. "Have this channelled down to Zaeed to see what he makes of it. Anything else?"

A slight pause then EDI answered: "Vido has apparently pulled back all his officers with the highest combat experience and set up guard towers around the habitat he presently occupies on K03. Inside the habitat, he has teams of five guarding every door with traps and grenades wearing pressurised suits."

"So he's not afraid of breaking the dome then." – That from Miranda.

"Small suggestion: don't take your helmet off when you get in there." – That from Joker who tipped his head back to catch her eye with that interjection.

"Riiiiight..." Shepard acknowledged with a raised brow, glumly. EDI continued:

"Kasumi says however that _she_ has laid traps of her own. Internal sensors and cameras will appear to be active but sensor readings and camera feeds are hacked and will remain under her influence, so you should be able to approach without tripping any alarms, provided you use the Normandy, Kodiak or Hammerhead as transport or move on foot. Kasumi says that _she_ will see you but enemy forces will not, and she will cut communications between any room you enter and the command and observation system. She has also set up explosives on the power and back-up power lines for those systems to serve as a distraction if you should need one, you just need to transmit on a frequency of 28kHz, the code word _'Oops'_ to set them off. She has also attached a compressed 3D map of the habitat dome."

Shepard smirked and shook her head. _Oops indeed.  
_

Joker chuckled: "Commander it looks like she somehow bounced the message off a conveniently shaped and heavily metallic rock within Kobayashi's faint ring system, which then hit a communications buoy and scrambled its protocols with some kind of adaptive virus that then bounced itself through automated systems communications buoys until the one nearest us realigned itself and spat the message out in our direction. _Damn_ that girl's good."

"And you know that because..?" – That from Miranda.

"...She also likes to gloat." – Came Joker's snide reply.

"Alright. I guess we know where we're going." Shepard concluded: "Set a course for K02 but have the Hammerhead ready to launch, too. Get everyone in the briefing room." She began heading that way herself. Miranda pushed off the wall she'd been leaning on and followed just behind.

"Thinking of sending a team to K02 in the Hammerhead while you head to K03 in the Kodiak?"

"Something like that. Two teams might be the only way to do it. I know you can fly the Kodiak but can either you or Jacob pilot the Hammerhead?"

"Both of us should be capable of handling it."

"Good."

Shepard said, and fished out her stylus from a tiny pouch at the top of her chestplate. Miranda's heart sank then, as Shepard shoved the end in her mouth, for it was portent of things to come, whenever she got _that_ glint in her eye. _Here we go..._ She thought to herself as she watched Shepard's expression take on that maddeningly mischievous grin she tended to get when she'd just come up with something completely  bat-shit _crazy_ – something that usually meant nearly every effort previously made into planning was about to go out of the window... _Especially_ whenever she jerked an eyebrow up and said, grinning through half lidded eyes as she stared off somewhere else:

"I have a plan..."

* * *

References:

Really must give a nod to C J Cherryh here – it was in her Chanur series that I was first introduced to the importance of location and time, and therefore timetables, in the movements of military forces. Please – if you haven't read those books, go find them (purchase brand new or second hand is just as good if you can find the ones with coverart done by Michael Wheelan) and read them. If you like my stuff, hers is _better!_

Shepard grinning maddeningly as she comes up with a plan that throws all previous ideas out of the window, some idea that is probably quite bad-shit crazy, then sticking something in her mouth and saying "I have a plan..." is a reference to the one and only Hannibal from the classic TV series: 'The A Team'.


	11. Chapter 11 - Storming The Gates

~ Finding The Heart ~

Storming The Gates

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard was three teammates down on her original plan to assault Vido's stronghold - not the best start to this part of their efforts, but _someone_ had to check out that other habitat on K02 at the same time as she hit Vido on K03. Someone had to make sure that if there  were hostages - even _if,_ arguably, being out here implied none of them were likely 'innocent law-abiding citizens' - that those people either got to safety... Or that the bomb, if there really _was_ a bomb, _[No of course there'll be a bomb, there's_ _always_ _a bomb. No bomb today? Bomb Tomorrow.]_ was disarmed.

She'd had to leave her two best techs – Tali and Legion - with that task. One would be going in first and alone, being the only one of them with a back-up soul... [Well, at least a portion Legion's runtimes had been copied, and were now stored on the biggest hard drive and flexible memory EDI could offer.] The other - Tali - was sent with the second team as back-up in that regard; her primary role being something completely different...

Technical skill notwithstanding, Tali had to be the most endearing person Shepard had ever met (except for Kaidan, maybe, although Tali was perhaps more doggedly sincere in the grand scheme of things). She was therefore the one member of her team who best stood a chance of winning the trust of the people they were trying to save, excluding Kelly, whom she could not send to the front line.

[Not after she'd endured capture by the Collectors and then having had a near miss with a nanomachine blender that would otherwise have turned her into liquefied-human-juice for a _hungry_ baby Reaper. _Anyone_ enduring  that or anything like it, would probably be volatile afterwards. In fact it was often a question on Shepard's mind how she _herself_ had endured all that she had endured and yet somehow stayed functional...]

Either way, Tali was the best bet: technical support and an emotional bridge-builder, who also knew how to use a shotgun.

Jack had gone with them, because Jack made a terrifying counterpart to Tali... Her presence would ensure that anyone who didn't listen to Tali, would definitely listen to intimidation and the likely threat of extreme biotic violence. Shepard winced then at the last detail of her plan for K02: that Tali wasn't leading that team; Miranda was. _There_ lay a first in their history serving together, and the one decision out of the many so far on this mission, that Shepard truly worried she might live to regret.

On any other day, Shepard would have appointed Garrus. In fact he was her default choice for second-in-command but there was no way this time: she'd have had to pry him from her suit with a crowbar... So intent was he on accompanying her on this mission and so sure was he that she'd need him. It had to be someone else.

Miranda had always been overshadowed by Garrus in terms of leadership. Garrus – who'd done his learning about leadership, following Shepard around the galaxy in pursuit of Saren. Later, when he became a known vigilante, he'd _earned_ the allegiance of the teammates he collected on Omega because he _proved_ himself in practical situations, to be what makes the kind of leader that people want to follow. It had been obvious from the first moment she met him that Garrus might one day make a good leader with a bit of chiselling and polishing off at the corners. _Miranda_ had been a different story...

When Shepard had first met Miranda, there _had_ been a moment of reckoning where she could see Miranda operating under extreme circumstances and she had certainly _seemed_ capable... but she'd never seen that side of Miranda since. Instead she had seen all the ways in which Miranda excelled at alienating all the people around her, making them want to do anything  other than follow her. For all her brains, it seemed rather that Miranda just couldn't see that about herself, or didn't recognise why it was bad. So on the day that Shepard appointed Garrus and _not_ Miranda as leader of the second fireteam on the Collector Base, Miranda's pride had been wounded terribly.

Possessing as she was of all her talents and all her skills, that moment had perhaps been the first time in Miranda's _entire life_ , that someone other than her father had pointedly set her down as not good enough for something. She was used to being the best at everything, but it had been clear in that defining moment that Shepard had made the right choice: the crew backed Garrus and that probably rubbed salt right into the wound.

So why Miranda, now? There _were_ other crew she could have picked, _would_ have picked on any other mission prior to this one. Yet this time, Shepard had chosen Miranda in _preference_. Something in her gut had simply told her that she  had to, that it was time to give her that chance. Something deep down told Shepard that for some reason she couldn't afford _not_ to – it needed to happen.

"Alriiight!" Yelled Jacob, bringing Shepard back to the present as the external and rudimentarily armoured outer-doors to the habitat broke off their seals in an explosion of metal, plastic, air... and five Blue Suns who thought they'd be smart and camp the airlock. The doors might have withstood fire from the Kodiak shuttle that Shepard was recognised for using, they might even have withstood a few Mako cannon blasts, but they were not expecting the Hammerhead – something Shepard had only previously used on missions where there were no survivors left to tell of what had dispatched them. Watching their bodies drift away sent a chill down her spine – but that memory had been triggered and asserted itself so often that she was getting faster at dismissing it. Company, and the small enclosed space of the Hammerhead, helped.

"Right in the front door!" Yelled Jacob as bodies sailed past.

Shepard found the resolve to half-smile, imagining everyone else present in the Hammerhead would never again complain about _her_ driving after today. He swung the thing left and right, banking to shoot a few of the stragglers he hadn't already gunned down, who'd been left to guard the outside of this glorified pirate base (that being about the sum of her feelings about Blue Suns mercenaries as of late: glorified pirates with delusions of professional legitimacy). Another sudden swerve and swoop upwards for vantage, followed by a drop back down, served as an unwanted reminder for why she preferred being pilot, _not_ passenger. The hammerhead levelled to a sudden stop and the return to being stationary after such a roller coaster jarred her stomach almost as much as if he'd managed to do a barrel roll.

"Not picking up any enemy contacts outside the habitat Commander." Those were welcome words from Jacob as the rest of the Hammerhead's occupants breathed a small sigh of relief. Shepard grinned at them beneath her helmet: they were more worried about needing to stay _in_ the Hammerhead, than taking their chances outside of it. She looked to her comrades and each nodded weapons-ready and prepared for combat, so she tapped the comms button on the side of her helmet:

"Kick the door."

The hatch opened. She, Garrus and Zaeed bailed out and ran for cover. As the Hammerhead banked again, turning to leave, Jacob's voice in her ear said:

"Give my regards to Vido. Just say the word if you need me to come on in there and hit 'em with the good stuff." – meaning use his biotics if they needed back-up, since none of the landing party had that particular skill.

"Will do." Shepard replied, and they began their advance toward the habitat.

"Never thought I'd say this but I guess I've finally met someone whose driving is _worse_ than yours." – That from Garrus through the head-to-head comms channel.

"That mean maybe you'll complain less next time _I'm_ driving?" She commented sweetly, hopping over a piece of melted outer-airlock door, already gone space-cold.

"Don't count on it. Your driving is _still_ terrible." He replied and she smiled. It was good to have smart-ass Garrus back again after so much I-don't-like-your-lover-he's-trouble 'big brother' Garrus.

"Huh." She lifted her chin and raced the last few steps to the cover of the outer wall and where the outer doors had been. The emergency mass effect field which had sprung up after Jacob blasted the outer doors shimmered blue in front of them.

"You ready to drop that shield and resurrect it behind us?"

Garrus had taken up a position against the opposing wall as he readied his omnitool. "Yeah. Just give me a minute. Watch it though – might still be a bit of atmosphere to blow when it drops, I think Jacob damaged the inner doors a little with that blast."

She turned to look towards Zaeed who had just stepped up beside her, out of the way of the field and he nodded 'ready'. She turned back to Garrus and nodded:

"Do it."

She waited for Garrus to hack the system and implant the selective instructions that would be required to temporarily drop the shield at the outer door, assert one at the _inner_ door (overriding safety protocols in the process), so that they could enter the ruptured airlock.

The mass effect field dropped and there was a violent gush of air that came screaming past, fading into the silence of vacuum as its molecules dispersed themselves. For some reason, seeing that triggered some synthesis of philosophy and choices made in Shepard's mind. In one startling moment of clarity a whole series of choices, a whole way of living that she had adopted since Horizon flashed before her eyes and began to form a pattern... There _had_ been reason for choosing Miranda, deeper than she could consciously understand at the time. Her instincts began to explain themselves. _.._

 _It's what I've been doing all along, isn't it?_

She looked at Garrus as he led her and Zaeed into what had formerly been the outer airlock, and set about installing a new shield back where the old one had been, behind them, enabling the airlock to retain pressure integrity once more (without which the inner doors would _not_ open). She studied him for a second and answered herself:

 _I've been making_ _leaders_ _._

Garrus placed a new anti-decompression shield behind them and removed the one ahead of them that blocked the inner doors. "Unlocking inner doors in 3, 2, 1..." - The inner doors flew open and through them came the sound of gunfire and a sideways rain of bullets, but Shepard didn't flinch. Rounding the corner from the frame where she'd been in cover and advancing calmly, she began firing as required... her mind and instincts were buzzing with a thousand actions, a thousand instincts that suddenly made logical sense. This particular task seemed mere child's play.

Garrus and Zaeed lay down suppressing fire as she stalked the gap between them, accelerating towards the one merc who raised his head to fire, thudding the butt of her rifle into his faceplace before he managed to get off a shot. She was peripherally aware that Garrus and Zaeed had followed her and were battling two others that remained combatant (another was already dead). Shepard was still thinking to herself when she came across the fifth, already shot and bleeding heavily, and disarmed her. When she pleaded mercy, she gave her a little omnigel to see to it that she was in no danger of bleeding out.

"Find someone better to follow for the rest of your life." She said, and left her on the floor as she pondered what made the two of them - her and the merc - different.

 _Everyone's always telling me I'm so damned special, unique... but I'm not. I just had the right conditions._ _A bit of gut instinct and the right conditions to become a leader instead of a bully – unlike that merc._

Meeting a real Reaper had just been the last piece of the puzzle, the impetus she needed to make the decision to be the absolute breaking best that she could be because she'd seen what was at stake.

 _The Reapers will leave none alive that could fend for themselves. Vigil counted for us the ways... How an entire galaxy's worth of sentient life could be extinguished brutally, subtly, methodically, and thoroughly._

Inevitably the best method the Reapers had to use she'd already experienced:

 _Take out the leaders and the rest will soon follow._

They advanced to the next room: clear. Down, then, the internal corridors at a jog without complication. Garrus found a security room of sorts and checked it out – Kasumi's work still seemed to be in play and nobody would even have known the way they'd come in if Jacob hadn't blasted the personnel entrance open with a thunderous explosion that half the habitat had likely felt if not heard. Shepard continued her musings as they moved through the customs offices (retrofitted as a supply room).

 _We talked to Sovereign on Virmire and maybe it started that far back... My mind just did the maths: A fleet of eons-old sentient machines?! Bad odds. Impossibly bad odds: a no-win scenario... Even back then I had an idea what might happen if I was extinguished. The Lazarus Project just ensured I lived to see it. It all fell apart..._

She looked at Garrus who was now hacking an internal door for which the mercs had somehow bypassed Kasumi's tampering so it wouldn't open.

 _I don't believe in the no-win scenario. I needed a way to beat the odds... Cheat death... or at least its usual consequences. And I found it: When command structures break down..._ _all you have left is that gut instinct to lead... or to follow... in whoever remains. But that gut instinct is something that exists in more people than we think– maybe even most of us, at some level. That's something they can't kill off quite so easily._

Garrus got the door open – a departure lounge ahead of the garage where the vehicles used to go between buildings under the dome were stored. As he did so, it was clear that in _this_ room, they were going to encounter more resistance than they'd met so far. Garrus dodged a rocket which subsequently headed off down the corridor behind them into a wall with a boom and a cloud of shattering panels.

"For a moment there I thought you were going to lose the other half of your face." – That was from Zaeed, who had ducked even before the doors had finished opening, having some gut sense that _Hell_ was incoming.

"I lost one half to these bastards already I'm not about to give them the other." Garrus said with a twitch of his mandibles in agitation.

Zaeed grinned. "Huh. Same here."

Shepard looked at the pair of them and contemplated how two people, who might as well be sworn enemies for all their differences, were presently working side by side and even laughing and joking together as a hail of bullets peppered their position.

 _That's my influence, isn't it?_

 _That's why the Reapers wanted me taken out and studied. But before it happened, I was already working on a solution. My instincts knew we were going to need leaders who were hidden, who without thinking could and already_ _did_ _work in unison as a team, but who would be – any_ _one_ _of them – individually capable of taking control of any operation anywhere... Leaders who_ _inspire_ _action, rather than simply ordering it. Leaders... like these two._

Garrus switched to his sniper rifle, beaded the leader, and took him out. "There goes the leader – I _love_ this rifle."

Zaeed waited for the retaliatory fire to cease then threw in an inferno grenade into where the origin of fire had been thickest. "That'll keep 'em down for a while!" – he yelled, confidently.

"Mmm... Why don't you take a little _stroll_ through the door and find out?" Garrus gestured with the butt of his rifle.

"Hey you took out the leader." Zaeed grinned in feigned praise, "After _you_." levelling his invitation with a half-bow of his head and a sweep of his hand towards the door. Shepard shook her head and walked between and past the pair of them, firing as she went. They _both_ followed, then.

 _So..._ She thought to herself: _That's what I've been doing. Contingency planning. Reapers think I'm their biggest threat?_ _Then here's ten more of me for them to chew on, scattered to the wind like air out of that airlock._ She looked at Garrus and felt a little pride: _Kill me, and ten more just like me will rise. I'll_ _see_ _to it._ Acknowledging she'd died once already, it was already starting to look like a consciously smart idea.

She already counted Garrus. Ash was well on her way, albeit estranged and in need of correction from xenophobic tendencies (although she was infinitely better than she had been when they first met). Tali was almost as good as Garrus. Samara and Zaeed were already capable... they just needed only a little push in a specific direction (expressing/using emotions). Liara was definitely in the range – perhaps the one amongst them who'd come the furthest from where she started, to become what she was now. Grunt and Jack needed more work but could lead well in the darkest days... Kasumi had already proven herself capable when solitary, but she was well on her way to dropping her preference for walking alone and had the charm and wit to win over most people.

Miranda was the one obvious choice missing. Her skills and talents _should_ have made her a formidable leader... which meant the biggest challenge  Miranda had to overcome, was the fact that nobody wanted to follower her. So... When Shepard had _had_ to pick someone else as second team-leader, her instincts had told her it was an opportunity she should not miss, and now she knew  why.

As they cleared up the stragglers, one merc lost his nerve at the sight of his comrade being blown away in a hail of bullets and got up to run. Zaeed caught the man and threw him down on the floor on his ass. His visor tilted upwards as he looked at the figure now standing over him, and flinched.

"Massani!" The turian male wailed and tried to crawl on his back away from Zaeed, "It's-" - as Zaeed lifted the butt of his assault rifle with deliberation and then landed it against the man's visor, cutting that sentence short with an impact hard enough to crack even a Turian skull through a helmet. Shepard turned around just in time to see it and winced – it was more than a little excessive.

"What the Hell are you _doing?!"_ – She scorned at first. Zaeed stood unmoving, and unresponsive. Shepard's eyes moved from him to the recently deceased and back again. She thought then, about the fact that the Turian had clearly recognised who Zaeed was. At first she'd imagined only that Vido's troops had been given a photo description of Zaeed to report in on sight, but that Turian had been  terrified.

"He know you from somewhere?" She asked, more calmly.

"Yeah." He shrugged and stared down at the corpse as blue blood began to pool around his feet. "He was one of the six that held me down while Vido put a gun to my head."

She nodded, darkly summarising that the Turian had in fact had it coming.

"Think they heard that warning?" – She asked of Garrus.

"With Kasumi playing with the comms? Doubtful." Garrus responded, but Shepard was ungratefully reassured that life was being its usual predictable pain in the ass when Zaeed then followed up with what he was thinking to himself:

"They were probably expecting me anyway." It was true, and actually, it _was_ part of the general plan to use him as bait - Shepard had only hoped to keep that card up her sleeve a little longer, was all. Zaeed then stood up straight, stretched his jaw and added, darkly:

"Vido knows I'm coming for him." -and with that the three of them made all the more haste.

* * *

REFERENCES:

"There's always a bomb." – That's a little nod to one of my all time favourite characters: Susan Ivanova from the TV series 'Babylon 5'. It's from the episode "Grail" if you want to look it up.

"Kick The Door" is a reference to one of my favourite cutscenes in the Halo game series (it's from Halo 3), probably also because it's one of my favourite tracks from the soundtrack to the series too. Sergeant Johnson says "Kick The Door" just before the Elites and UNSC launch an assault upon The Ark. The track, by Martin O'Donnell, that I'm referring to is:

7\. "The Ark" - I. "Farthest Outpost"

Cheating death? No belief in no-win scenarios? They're fighting in a habitat on one of the moons of a planet named Kobayashi. I'm hoping someone reading this worked out that reference on their own! See the trivia section for the wikia entry for the planet – hell google it, you'll get both references then I'll bet: the planet was named as a nod to Kobayashi Maru scenario from 'Star Trek', as first mentioned in Star Trek II – Wrath of Khan.

"Hey why don't you go take a little _stroll_ through the door and find out?" Is paraphrased from a scene from the film "Tremors" (1990).

"...for every one of you that falls, two shall arise" - is the quote I paraphrased from the film 'Hellboy' (2004) that refers to Rasputin's promise to the daemon 'Sammael'. See how the Reapers like the idea of multiple Shepards! Or I paraphrased "Cut off the head and two more shall rise" from the film 'Captain America: The First Avenger' (2014). Take your pick. Of course, my mind could also have flown to the film 'The Three Amigos' (lol) but I couldn't think of a quote from that apart from "You shot the invisible gunman!" - which doesn't really suit.


	12. Chapter 12 - Lead By Example

~ Finding The Heart ~

Lead By Example

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard, Garrus and Zaeed cleared the garage of mercs, commandeered a vehicle and headed deeper into the dome, straight for Vido's command centre where hopefully Kasumi would be waiting. Shepard spotted many abandoned buildings ravaged by what looked to be decades of periodic rioting and take-overs as they rattled along in an old transport that had itself seen better days. It was a wonder anybody _not_ on Vido's payroll managed stable employment in a place like this.

Not being able to afford to live anywhere 'civilised' didn't mean you could any more easily afford not to... Racketeering and the more generally widespread 'pursuit of a quick buck at anyone else's expense' saw to that. In the end, the only real difference was that if you were too poor to live somewhere civilised, your money paid for less but the price of living was still the same - you just paid the bill in other ways. Nothing the poor can buy has assured quality, not least because the poor are least able to complain about anything faulty. You'd buy things cheaper, but they'd break more often.

In civilised places you pay your dues in standard currency - credits - and maybe the odd exchange of favours.

In uncivilised places costs are the same, it's just that what you can't pay in credits you pay in blood, tears, sanity or sanctity.

People stole from their business partners, or left a trail of debts and collateral damage as they moved from family to family, or prostituted their own children - or sometimes even sold their own organs or signed up to unethical research - if times got tough. Over-expenditure becomes a necessity of survival and the lunacy of _extravagant_ over-expenditure just doesn't feel crazy anymore when even just to get by, you're already accruing debts. At all these crunch points all that really matters is how long you can live better than the limits of your circumstances would allow if you just played fair... Before someone catches you at it and calls in the social/financial/environmental debt.

'Playing fair', when living in poverty, sometimes might as well mean: 'Lay down and die.'

Shepard wondered about the people Miranda and the second team had been sent to save, and how well they might receive the attempted intervention. Poverty after all teaches people first and foremost that most handouts come with a price tag. It preaches the philosophy that you should take _anything_ you can any way that you can, and ultimately not to question the ethics of any opportunity for doing so. It was entirely possible that Miranda's team was up against a far harder adversary than even Vido might prove to be: a large population of people conditioned to trust  nobody but themselves. The irony was not lost on Shepard's dark sense of humour that she had sent _Miranda_ – someone who herself had learned to trust her own judgement and suspect anyone else's – to save them.

 _Have I made a mistake..?_

There had been no small objection when Shepard had appointed Miranda leader of the second team. In fact she'd had to personally reassure/reiterate the fact to certain members of crew on the matter, least of which surprisingly being Miranda herself:

"Miranda. You don't need me to tell you how exceptionally talented you are for the many abilities you possess..." – Miranda had bowed her head to that, for she knew what was coming – "...But you know _leadership_ – inspiring others to follow you – was never one of them." Miranda's face had contorted, as if she were about to bark back, but instead she simply nodded. There was an unnatural pause before Miranda had responded:

"It's true." Miranda had nearly choked on the words. A gulp later: "I don't have quite the same _fire_ that you do, Shepard," then meeting her eyes with an up-jutted chin: "...but I'll try not to let you down."

"That wasn't a reprimand or a threat." Shepard had shaken her head, grabbed Miranda by the arm and yanked her further towards the wall away from any eavesdroppers. Leaning close to her she added quietly:

"Look. You're good at a thousand things I could never even _dream_ of understanding – but you're good at them first and foremost because they were something you could study in a book. Being able to inspire others is not something you can put under a microscope, so all your intelligence, all your astounding abilities to observe people and their motivations, never helped you. Hell you didn't even know _how_ to learn about it."

She paused for half a breath and drew back a little: "But you've hung around me long enough now I think you're finally starting to get a _feel_ for it – and that's what really makes the difference."

Miranda had looked up then – curiosity, with the faintest hope hidden in her eyes. Shepard continued:

"It's not about grand demonstrations of sacrifice, it's not about power, control or contingency. It's about compelling others through familiarity and _small_ demonstrations of self-sacrifice – day to day things that show you give a damn about them – to follow your example to the point where one day they do what they imagine you would mean them to do without even thinking about it. They can't imagine motives you don't demonstrate by the pattern of your actions."

Shepard let go Miranda's arm for half a second only to slap her hand back onto it with attention-getting (albeit playful) force: "That's _why_ I've joked around at your expense so much," She shook Miranda through her arm with a grin: "that's why I'm always telling you to 'loosen up' or 'let your hair down'. I'm not doing it to get under your skin, Miranda, I do it because _those_ are the ways by which you allow the people around you to develop the gut feeling that they know  who you are, and what you'd do in any given situation."

"I know." Miranda nodded slightly, and had lowered her eyes. That had surprised Shepard, until she remembered Miranda's capacity for reasoning. It was a _good_ thing that reassured her that she  was doing the right thing, or at least that this idea was not a completely crazy one.

"Of course you do." Shepard had smiled, letting go of her arm. "I appreciate that your life taught you to guard such things closely, so that nobody ever had a clue exactly what you could or would do in a given scenario, except that you'd undoubtedly succeed... but that's not how leadership works. People _have_ to know you, to trust you. Maybe not the details – they don't need to know your favourite flavour of icecream or the name of the first person you remember – but people need to know you by the consistency of your choices and how you treat _them_." Miranda thought on that for a moment and Shepard waited.

Leaning back and folding her arms Shepard had then added: "You are more like the rest of us than you will ever know, but nobody can identify with you until you learn to open up and share yourself. Miranda you can't learn these things by studying them. Sure, advice helps, but even that doesn't do the job completely: these're things you learn by doing. Don't think, just do. _Try_. Repeatedly. After a while it'll become a part of you – something people recognise."

Miranda's eyes kept trying to dart elsewhere, but she made effort to lock them with Shepard's own and stare back, with a twitch of her mouth and half a nod that said silently: _"I did hear all that. I'm taking it in."_

Finally, the words "I'll do what I can, Shepard." crept from her lips.

A patient, kind smile spread across Shepard's face as she briefly placed a hand lightly on Miranda's shoulder:

"It might feel like I'm throwing you at the wolves, but just remember I wouldn't do it if I didn't think you could handle it."

Shepard turned to go, adopting then that same maddeningly manic grin she often had when she was winding Miranda up about something on an ordinary day (which for Miranda, felt like a perpetually increasing proportion of their reactions every day since the Suicide Mission) as she added last over her shoulder with a wink:

"Ithink you're ready for your first crash landing."

Shepard had seen Miranda's eyes water in that moment, but to save Miranda's dignity she'd turned back and set off down the corridor at a deliberate pace, albeit with a painful pang to her heart at the memory of that very sight. She felt it again now, in recollection, and it occurred to Shepard in this moment as it had then: that in her whole life there had never been a thing Miranda doubted she could do, but _this_.

She had likely never before received the sort of encouragement Shepard had given to do something Miranda didn't already believe she could accomplish. Why? Probably _because_ of her competence as she progressed from infant to adult, coupled undoubtedly to the presumption of having mapped out through detailed genetic design her every strength and weakness. Shepard would bet good credits on The Illusive Man having obtained a copy of that map _before_ he took Miranda into his employ.

Most people who knew Miranda's origins would assume that she would have had the 'best of the best' of tutoring, but they probably imagined therefore she'd also had enough praise to become quite the spoilt brat. That was, after all, a demeanour she often seemed to carry in the eyes of others: a cold superiority and calculated self-assurance she exuded in copious amounts in every aspect of her being, even in just the way she walked.

 _Except the kind of person who created Miranda and the kind of person who'd subsequently 'recognise' her talents, wouldn't be primarily interested in tasking her with anything they weren't sure she should be able to do... And praise when you know already know the outcome will be good, just doesn't feel the same._ _Parents_ _– the good ones – don't do that to their children. Good parents don't place expectations, they might try to make a reasonable assessment but they acknowledge that in fact they don't know_ _what_ _to expect from their children. Good parents are humble enough to offer their child the opportunity to try, and the opportunity to fail. Praise given and received whatever the outcome then feels sincere. That's something Miranda probably never experienced..._

Miranda knew how to earn the loyalty of people who might use her as a tool, but she had never learned how to earn loyalty as a leader - or a friend. The look on Miranda's face when Shepard revealed her plan had quickly transitioned from self-assured worthiness and deserving (it fit the pattern of confidence in her abilities that she'd come to assume from her superiors prior to Shepard) – to stark panic. Despair and doubt (as she remembered that Shepard had not, in fact, thought her previously worthy of the task) quickly took hold although she hid it well. It was quite funny in retrospect but come what may, the notion had formed in Shepard's mind that Miranda had been following her long enough. If she hadn't started to understand what made a good leader in her gut by now, she never would.

 _And the Reapers won't wait for you to be_ _ready_ _._

And _that_ was the context within which she now knew her mind to be working. It _did_ make sense. It made an awful lot of sense when before, she was wondering if she were crumbling under pressure and losing her own marbles in the process. Shepard gambled, and a gamble this certainly was but she stood by it, nonetheless.

 _If potentially the most skilled and most intelligent human that ever lived has no capacity to use those immense qualities as a leader, then, well... That's just one more tragedy than I'm willing to accept the galaxy will throw at me today._ _After all, it's more likely saving up for the really_ _big_ _ones ahead – like when the Reapers show up in full force. By that point, my luck – and everyone else's – will have run out. So I'd better push mine for everything it's worth, while I still can._

As such... Miranda was now on K02, leading a very mismatched team and over the hours that followed, proving Shepard's gamble either wise or foolish. She looked up through the dull poly-composite 'glass' dome of the habitat of K03 and sent out a silent wish:

 _Prove me_ _right_ _..._

* * *

"If Shepard is right we could have a lot of frightened people to deal with." Tali attempted conversation in what had otherwise been a rather deathly-quiet (since the very moment of their departure) Kodiak shuttle ride. Shepard's parting words to her were still ringing in her ears:

 _Support_ _Miranda. Help her do this._

She knew what Shepard meant. She also was pretty sure Shepard was crazy (herself having no admiration for Miranda's capacity for leadership)... Not that Shepard being crazy had ever stopped Shepard from accomplishing anything – in fact Tali wondered sometimes if perhaps it helped. At the time Tali had looked at Shepard, shrugged, sighed, and said simply: _I'll do what I can._ But it was still a promise, so, keeping that promise: here she was... Trying to encourage conversation with two of the most volatile people she had ever met.

"You mean a lot of stupid people." – came Jack's response with a snigger. "Can't believe we're supposed to protect these morons. Only idiots let themselves get stuck being someone else's meatshield."

Legion, as usual, observed this conversation silently from the edge of the group. He only tended to be talkative around Shepard (and even that was limited), although he and Tali had tentatively exchanged some messages since the Collector Base mission. Tali noted that Miranda was certainly trying to be good: she hadn't yet retorted and in fact she hadn't even pulled a face.

 _Typical: the one time I might agree with her, she says nothing at all._

Living a life of vulnerability herself, Tali was sensitive to the obligation - _and need -_ to look after those less able to protect themselves. Tali knew what it was to be dependent upon others. She knew the obligation to grow up with the responsibility to return in kind and play your part in the greater whole that had looked after you when _you_ were vulnerable. It was one of Tali's pet personal hates: Miranda and Jack were both of them fools in her eyes for refusing, in their own ways, to take responsibility for the welfare of others, all the while they themselves numbered among the most _capable_ individuals Tali had ever met.

She shook her head and readied to tackle Jack herself head-on in a manner born from a lifetime of forced proximity to other people who, for the welfare of all, she had needed to get along with - regardless of whether or not she wanted to like them. It was reflex. It was instinct: her people had long learned the lesson that leaving opinions to fester un-debated and scattered amongst individuals merely _fostered_ the growth of far bigger disputes that inevitably arose later, the collateral damage from which usually being far more costly than anyone wise would want to afford. One learned to foresee such calamities, and avoid them, if one truly wanted to sustain their own personal survival.

[Everyone _else_ typically labelled Quarians as argumentative by the way they talked. The irony being that her people's directness (or as everyone else called it: their 'argumentative nature') had evolved out a necessity to _resolve_ conflicts of interest and end hostilities, as quickly and with as little cost to the whole community as possible. It was something that on the contrary made Tali  proud to be Quarian, because it was a an invaluable skill that had to be learned and it was a difficult one to master... It was a skill that seemed largely absent in the galaxy outside of the Flotilla.]

 _Oh well. Here I go..._

"You don't mean that." Tali said with a half-shake of her head, and quickly added: "Not everybody can see things coming. Not everybody can escape a storm like this. That doesn't make Vido any less the villain. Blaming victims doesn't do anybody any good." She said her piece and ended it with a dismissive wave of her hand. It was logic. It was sense. Although she wasn't at all sure that Jack had the capacity to grasp either of those things.

Jack shook _her_ head then, and pulled a sour face. Doubtless she was about to say something back – always wanting the last word – but to the surprise of both of them, Miranda chipped in and cut her off: "These people aren't too different from the kids at Pragia. They just get knocked whichever way the next big wind blows like leaves on the wind."

"And _that's_ why  I became a hurricane." Jake pulled an unfriendly grin and shoved her back up against the wall of the shuttle with a poignant thud. Tali winced. Being stuck in a small space between _these_ two was not high on her list of ways she wanted to die.

"And you know I'd never call you anything less." - Miranda replied with silky sarcasm, and Tali's heart sank a little lower. Suddenly what she thought of as a gift and point of pride, became a curse and rather representative of the one thing she _couldn't_ do... She began to wish again as she had once long ago whilst still on pilgrimage that she could do what Liara, Garrus, Kaidan _(Keelah se'lai may his soul return to where he began)_ and of all people even _Ash_ had always seemed able to do: kept her mouth  shut...

[In idle, morbid, curiosity... she began pooling the relevant statistics into her omnitool for what force and vector would apply to her mass from decompression of this volume of air (at standard temperature and pressure) to hard vacuum if she were flushed out with it, in order to calculate how far she'd be flung from the Kodiak before her air ran out when these two biotics tore its hull open.]

...Until, that was, Miranda added something before Jack could escalate that Tali would never have seen coming. It brought her head up in surprise to hear it:

"You're right Jack." – and that _wasn't_ with sarcasm, either – "Sometimes people have to adapt – or die trying." Jack looked about as stunned as Tali was for a moment, then her expression shifted to one of vague satisfaction. Tali breathed, and halted her input of the various parameters for her decompression calculation so that she might better pay attention.

Miranda looked straight at Jack and spoke once more, with softer tones: "But regardless of whether or not you think they deserve the chance to do or be better, you and I both know what it feels like to be in their position: stuck at the _start_ of a bad situation, a pawn in the middle of some larger game you have absolutely no control over."

Jack's knee-jerk reprisal was swift and snarly: "You and me both?! Like you'd know anything about that, _cheerleader_."

[Tali resumed her decompression calculation.]

Miranda sucked her cheeks, but kept her patience. "I lived in a gilded cage that just pretended to be privilege. You lived in a prison cell and you knew it all along. Sometimes I envy you Jack, I honestly do: nobody around _you_ ever pretended to care about you – you knew from day one they didn't. It was hard, but it made you stronger."

Jack scowled and raised her voice, almost spitting with spite as she tersely replied: " _Nothing_ you ever went through compares to what I went through. _Nothing!"_ – but Tali's continuous tapping at her omnitool must have caught Jacks attention for she also yelled then in her direction: "What the hell are you _doing?"_

Tali felt her blood run hot and cold and her nerves tingled all over, but she wasn't about to show Jack she was scared of her in _any_ way. Carrying on her calculations without missing a beat she calmly she replied:

"Oh just calculations on how far we'll be flung from the Kodiak before our air runs out if you two have a spat."

[Legion's image popped up on Tali's omnitool then – he'd sent her a message. Tali read it with incredulity: it was a string of information for her to add in new parameters. Specifically: his own body mass and the increasing impact upon runtimes of falling temperatures (he did not need air, but temperature mattered), Jack and Miranda's relative maximum known biotic field strengths and the volume of air that would be contained, within what size sphere of biotic field, at their optimum capabilities to maintain one, as extrapolated from Legion's own calculations of how they would handle the strain of the vacuum of space. Oh and a note reminding her of Jack and Miranda's lack of proper pressure suits leading to potential immediate surface tissue damage and blood pressure changes that might affect how long they could maintain biotically retained spheres of air. She added all of it into her simulation, input her _own_ mass and other parameters she'd been working with, and sent the whole lot back to him, trying hard not to laugh at the absurdity.]

After a pause for an intake of breath, Miranda waded back into the argument with:

"You're right. I will never know what you went through. Of course not. But you and I are two sides of the same coin, Jack. Opposite sides... but the same coin." Jack thought about that a moment, and Miranda took advantage of her pause for thought and added: "Thanks to seeing the dossier the Shadow Brother had on you, _you_ now know you had a mother who _wanted_ you, who only gave you up because _Cerberus_ doctors told her she was giving up a corpse. Even then, she only let you go because they promised that researching on you (or as she knew it: your corpse) they'd be able to save other children from the same fate."

Miranda took a breath and gestured with a gloved hand: "That was you. Then, on the other side of the coin, _my_ own father cooked me up as an experiment. He didn't _want_ me as a daughter at all. He only  kept me around so he could try to perfect his next experiment. I was constantly being tested, controlled to shape my development in far more subtle ways than you experienced but believe me: my every move was under his scrutiny and surveillance. In the end I only escaped from him _thanks_ to Cerberus, who offered me the chance to be genuinely wanted, to be valued – how pathetic is  that?!"

It was the first time that Jack or Tali had ever heard Miranda say anything self-deprecating. It stunned the two of them into silent stares at Miranda, and even Legion's browplates flicked about with mild agitation. Miranda's face crumpled up into an expression none of them had ever seen from The Ice Queen before.

Miranda looked at the floor. "At very least you tasted the bitter truth and knew right there and then that was what it was. Mine was coated in sugar so thick it took me longer than I'd like to admit that I was _still_ caged, even after I left my father. Cerberus used me like they _wanted_ to use you, except that with me they put effort into disguising the fact so that I'd follow the Illusive Man around like his little pet willingly." She shook her head: "I don't think the little girl pent up in Pragia screaming at other children who couldn't hear her was pathetic. _I_ think the little girl who jumped from her father's lab into the Illusive Man's lap was pathetic." She looked up and met Jack's eyes and there was pain in her expression that Tali didn't imagine anyone had ever seen there before either, at least not since Jack escaped Pragia and wound up on Shepard's crew.

There was a stunned silence, during which Jack and Miranda stared at each other for the longest time. Tali decided she should say what she thought they both should be thinking: "Well I don't think _either_ of you were pathetic. Neither of you had any control over what happened to you at the time. You were victims, and as I have said before: victims are not the ones who should be held to answer for anything."

Jack's face mellowed with the confusion and she shrugged, fidgeting restlessly as she spoke:

"... I guess." Trying as best to hide her surprise as she could, with sudden disinterest. "I guess it really wasn't easy being perfect after all." Jack heard herself speak and winced. "I mean being _made_ perfect." And again. " _Shit._ " And lastly: "Fuck! Forget I said anything." Then she kicked her feet out, folded her arms and stared elsewhere, clearly frustrated by being conversationally inept at saying what she was perhaps trying to say. But thankfully Miranda seemed to understand – Jack was trying to say something to her, and for once it wasn't venomous. Stillness followed, in which everyone breathed and Tali set aside her calculations.

Miranda regarded Jack with curiosity: "Shepard once told me I wasn't so different from you as I thought. I never knew what she meant until now. I'm sorry it took me so long to see I wasn't really any better off than you were. I used to think I was, but I wasn't. Friends?" Miranda held out her hand, and not that anyone saw it: Tali's jaw dropped.

Jack looked at Miranda and Tali saw for the first time in Jack's eyes: plain, stark, fear... She flustered, fidgeted, shrugged and turned away. Refusing to look at anybody, Jack muttered:

"C'mon lets drop it already – don't be offering me anything. I don't do warm and fuzzy."

Miranda, who recovered her serenity and tried very hard not to let a little smile show for having foreseen Jack's reaction (and the hurt to herself that refusal would cause), nodded and replied as she withdrew her hand:

"That's OK. Neither do I." Then she sat back and crossed her legs.

KaMpande reported their arrival and immanent need to disembark from the shuttle. Miranda sprung upwards to lunge after the support rail above the and recovered her composure.

"Alright." She said after a moment, then turned towards the three of them with an almost Jack-like sneer: "Let's go save some idiots." A devious half-smirk spread across Jack's face after a moment's surprise, realising what Miranda had done, then the four of them jumped out of the Kodiak.

Thankfully K02 had enough atmosphere that pressure suits were not required, but the air was neither composed of the right gases nor pressurised enough for humans without breather masks, and that limited sprint lengths. It was also bitterly cold, even for people who could coat themselves in biotic fields with energy stored in their implants. Couple that with the lesser air pressure and Miranda knew that for her and Jack at least, limbs would ache before too long if they stayed outside the dome. They gathered behind a rock tall enough to shield all four of them. Miranda was about to check everyone knew their tasks before setting off, but Legion turned toward the three of them and took an uncomfortably close step forward. Arms flung wide, the synthesised voice announced confidently:

"We... are Legion."

\- And with that said Legion instantly turned, cloaked, and ran straight out cover towards the habitat at a pace none of them could match unless they wanted to keep up a flat-out sprint. They were left speechless as they simply watched Legion's cloaked figure – slightly detectable from behind if you knew its starting point and already knew what you were looking for, to spot the slight smudging around the transparent silhouette – as it sped off into the distance.

"The fuck was that about..?!" – That from Jack with incredulity, and after a moment's stunned and confused silence, Miranda sniggered and stifled it. Tali giggled. Miranda sniggered again. Then the three of them burst into outright laughter. Miranda and Jack both looked at Tali, thinking/hoping that of all of them, _she_ might know, but she shook her head:

"Honestly I don't know..." Tali managed between giggles.

"Do you think he understood everything..?" Miranda wondered, suddenly intellectually inspired. She had never thought the Geth capable of emotional nuances, except that it _had_ insisted on having an old piece of Shepard's armour attached to its person. That had always been strange.

"Anything's possible." Tali shrugged. "We'd always assumed the Geth would develop onwards from the point we last engineered them, that they got smarter in networks. But Legion is smarter on his own than any Geth-" Hate and the word 'Geth' had a connection hardwired into her instincts – but she forcibly corrected herself, determined to use Legion as an example for why that should change in her mind. She quickly added: " _Heretics_ I've ever fought, networked together. Maybe he _does_ understand..." - And that was quite an admission _and_ change of heart, coming from Tali.

"Huh." – That from Miranda.

"Hey _Queeny_ – think you should be giving us some directions about now?" – That, from Jack, was the first jest she'd ever made of Miranda that seemed to carry some fondness with it.

"Absolutely, _tatt-brat_ , check your omnitool..." Miranda replied and reaffirmed the plan, with a pet insult she had on the spot invented of her own – 'tattooed brat'. Jack grinned, having apparently worked it out, and apparently decided she liked it.

Whilst Miranda went over what they were about to do, Tali stood and stared at the two of them: _I don't know how you did it Shepard, but I wish you could see the two of them now. It's like a huge weight has lifted. I never should have doubted your decision._

* * *

REFERENCES:

Didn't quite manage to paraphrase it well enough to say it's a proper nod to the character, but the bit about resourcefulness/opportunism/abandonment of morals was going to be a nod to the character Noland from the 2010 film "Predators". When asked how he'd survived so long, he says something like "salvaging what I can, when I can, where I can." - and then he turns out to be quite happy to take that off the dead bodies of fellow humans he kills to prop up his own continuing survival. I figure he's a great example (in sci-fi terms!) of what desperation can push a person into being just fine about doing to better themselves.

"Queeny" is of course from "Ice Queen" - Miranda's nickname, but it made me laugh when I thought of it because of the Character by the same name in an old British comedy TV series called "Black Adder" (I think there were several series that used the term in the title, involving the same comedians). Smile if you got that - I never loved it as much as many people do and haven't seen them all, but it still got me laughing my socks off a fair few times.


	13. Chapter 13 - Close To The Bone

~ Finding The Heart ~

Close To The Bone

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard, Garrus and Zaeed hopped out of the rust-bucket transport they'd commandeered, and darted for cover. There was a shocking silence about the place, as if it had been emptied of all living things. No gunfire erupted upon their arrival either, despite the racket their transport surely must have made. Shepard jerked an eyebrow upwards and looked to her teammates, It was quiet – _Too quiet_. They edged forwards to a service entrance and Shepard motioned to Garrus, nervous that even the sound of her voice from inside her helmet might carry in this quiet. Garrus padded softly forwards as instructed - Turians being able to move _forwards_ with far better stealth than humans (it was just every other direction they got clumsy) - and began working on the door.

"Shepard!" Garrus barked and dived for cover as the door began opening of its _own_ accord. They were all about to open fire – an instinct _not_ helped by the decloaking of a figure suddenly before them.

"Kasumi!" Shepard yelled, not that her voice would have come soon enough to stop trigger fingers either side of her from being pulled, but it helped at least to halt her own.

Kasumi leaned in the doorway and folded her arms. Breaths were taken all round and let out with relief but there was a brief, awkward silence where Kasumi did nothing but glare at the three of them. Finally she sucked her tongue in sour fashion and addressed them calmly as she leaned against the frame, tucking one lightly-booted foot behind the other:

" _Mask the Kodiak's presence._... You said. _Block personnel from cameras and sensors..._ You said. I gave you detailed plans of the habitat, promised easy access into the dome _without_ detection..." She tilted her face with the flash of an unfriendly smile, fluidly sweeping a hand from one side to the other: "...And  you come blasting in with the Hammerhead stirring up every Blue Suns merc within seven lightyears of this place." - punctuated by unfurling fingers. She closed her hand into a fist then - excepting her index finger which she then rested on her cheek: "Do you have _any_ grasp of stealth, Shepard?"

Shepard shrugged and stood up: "Sorry Kasumi... Plans change. I had to send a second team to investigate the possible hostage situation on K02. It had to be done simultaneously to the strike on K03, so that meant two vehicles. I hadn't asked you to work on masking the Hammerhead, so I sent the second team in the Kodiak to K02 on the off chance you'd extended your cover for it to that moon..."

"...Which lucky for _you_ , I just happened to do." Kasumi folded her arms.

"...Meanhile _I_ came here in the Hammerhead." Shepard shrugged again. "Without you masking its presence, I figured there'd have been no sneaking in here with the Hammerhead undetected anyway. Besides it had cannons that could tear through reinforced blast doors."

Through Shepard's helmet Kasumi saw her eyes half-lid, her cheeks rise. _She's doing it again. That damned smile. I just know it._ It was the expression Shepard always pulled whenever she upended a plan and sent it sideways. Kasumi smiled back in like fashion beneath glittering dark eyes, raising a thinly gloved hand to rest a finger coyly upon the purple tattoo of her bottom lip:

"Mmm. Yes. I got _that_ on tape."

"So here we are." Shepard shrugged.

"So here we are." Kasumi smiled again and sighed with a limp wave of her hand: "You sure know how to get a party started don't you?" Shepard ducked her head and grinned as she looked up at Kasumi beneath apologetic brows.

Kasumi sighed: "Vido was going to hop, skip and leg it out of here after the ruckus you kicked up."

" **Where'd he go?** **Where's** **Vido** **?!"** – Boomed Zaeed, growling as he butted in from beside Shepard shoulder-first, his gloved hands tightening their grip around gun composite plastic so hard they squeaked with resistance.

"I said ' _was'_. He's still here..." Kasumi gracefully half-turned her head towards him, eyes sliding the rest of the way to catch his as she folded her arms again: "For now."

Her eyes shifted back to Shepard with casual ease. "I've penned him into his own miniature weapons forge. Quite a nice new facility actually - for some reason he's recently taken an interest in manufacturing weapons. Anyway it was quite the inventive solution... He has yet to _realise_ I've penned him in there. He thought it would be his best hiding place and the most secure retreat he could get to, considering all shuttles out of here seemed to be having issues taking off... missing essential parts and software as they are." She smiled that silken, seductively charming smile, but then her eyes flickered and her temperament seemed to grow darker:

"But you might want to be careful: His top lieutenant is guarding the place and they're holed up pretty good in that compound. You'd better watch out for him Shepard – he doesn't _like_ you."

Shepard stared at Kasumi blankly as she tried to put that together in a way that didn't send a chill down her spine. _The Batarian at Vladimir's farm..._

"Solem Dal'Serah?" She ventured.

"The one and only." Kasumi nodded, and sucked her own tongue.

"What are his reasons?" Shepard frowned all the harder. _Come to think of it, something did feel off about him..._

"Better I show you." Kasumi operated her omnitool and shunted files and cross-references over to Shepard's own. Shepard began to look over what was there while Kasumi narrated.

"Seems that before he joined the Blue Suns, he might have had a little to do with terrorism in the Attican Traverse... During which he was involved in quite a few slaving raids."

Shepard's blood ran stone cold, and a snarl set on her face even before she could see the pattern. Garrus motioned to Kasumi for her to copy what Shepard was reading to him, and he caught up quickly. He scowled hard at what he saw: Bits and pieces of partially erased contracts with Solem Dal'Serah's signature on them – contracts for slave exchanges – along with invoices for ship refuelling and repairs at times and locations that placed _his_ ship in the vicinity of Shepard's homeworld, Mindoir, within _days_ either side of the attack that had robbed Shepard of her childhood, her family, her friends... any life she could have had otherwise.

"Bastard." Shepard said, taking the words right out of his mandibles.

"He was there..." Her voice all but a breathless murmur at first, then louder: "He was _there_. More than that, I bet that son of a bitch is the one who led the whole damned operation!"

Kasumi caught the change in Shepard's demeanour and shifted her stance nervously. Momentarily wondering, perhaps, if she should better have kept this information to herself. She shrugged:

"He hides his files very well. He has since killed nearly everyone who knew his past. But he's not as good at 'hiding' as I am 'finding'..." She tilted her head slightly with a shrug, "I... uh... Thought you should know." Kasumi righted herself to stand straight, motionless in the doorway.

"Lemme look." - That from Zaeed, Kasumi obliged him while Garrus asked:

"How did _you_ know this would be of importance to Shepard?" Old C-Sec instincts dying hard: he was always suspicious of this known-thief. Who knows what else she knew but didn't say.

" _Please._ " Kasumi rolled her eyes and looked at him directly: "It is well publicised that Shepard grew up on Mindoir and her age places her there at about the right time. I _may_ have hacked into a few files here and there, just to be sure of who I'd be dealing with when the Illusive Man came knocking with a deal... But don't tell me _you_ didn't do the same, once upon a time."

Garrus' momentary hesitation was all that was required to answer that question, and he asked nothing more so Kasumi continued, turning to Shepard:

"Looks like he never actually _met_ you in person, but he does seem to have one hell of a grudge against you Shepard. Perhaps he holds you responsible for the capture of the slavers left behind for chasing you? He lost a brother the date Mindoir was attacked. I don't know if the two are connected – the death certificate doesn't say _where_ his brother died."

Zaeed smiled in that hateful way he had and crossed his arms as he outright laughed – it was a _dark_ laugh:

"Ohhh... This is _good_. Never _did_ like the bastard. Always said he was a goddamn  terrorist." Then he looked at Shepard across his shoulder and sneered with added venom: "Fine by me if you want to put the son of a bitch down on our way to Vido. I'll even lend you a grenade: You can watch the bastard _burn_ before we finish this."

It actually appealed. Shepard looked at Zaeed unsmiling, unflinching, through cold, vacant eyes. Garrus saw the look on her face and felt a sharp, jabbing pain to see her so. It was reflex as the words tumbled out of his mandibles:

"Shepard I know what you usually say, but this man deserves to die." _And there's no way else justice will be served._ Garrus looked at her with cold blue fury. Rare for him to agree with Zaeed on anything, but Garrus had always had a pet hate for slavers even before he called 'friend' somebody whose life had been so shaped by them as Shepard's had.

If this Solem Dal'Serah really was the one responsible for the slaver raid on Shepard's homeworld that killed her family then as her friend, he was honour-bound to see this monster paid for his crimes unless Shepard specifically told him not to. But Shepard looked at him, wounded like he had never seen – not even after Virmire – and buried beneath that expression was a rage he'd never seen before, either...

 _Every time she's ever told me I needed to show restraint, every time she's stopped me from acting on that feeling... Could it be that it was just because she had just never experienced it for_ _herself_ _..?_ That thought shocked him to his core. _All that talk of "not letting it change me" and pious principles... was it born simply out of naivety..?_ Spirits... he even pitied her... Another pillar supporting the weight of his once-worship for her cracked, and snapped.

Shepard walked a few paces away from the three of them, lifted her arm to a lamppost, rested her head against it and tried to think. Much to the surprise of everyone including herself, over and over again there was only one answer that came to her:

"No. Garrus you're right this time." She shook her head as she leaned it against her arm on the lampost, "There's no way I can bring that man to justice. I'm not an Alliance commander anymore, I'm not even properly recognised as a SpecTRe, and I can't trust in Cerberus to do the right thing."

It was logical, sensible, prudent even... for her to kill him. Wasn't it? She pushed off the post and stalked straight towards them:

"There's no court that I can name that he couldn't find a way to influence and I'd have no way to stop him. So the only justice I can bring is what I take to him in person." Shepard pulled her M-6 Carnifex from her belt and pulled out the thermal clip: "And there's only one form of justice I'm carrying that I'm willing to spare for that bastard." She popped the clip back into place and belted the pistol.

 _I'm willing to relinquish_ _one_ _bullet. Where d'you want it?_

Zaeed and Garrus fell in beside her as she walked towards the doorway. Kasumi moved out of the way, then joined Shepard's side.

"In here." Kasumi motioned to the left, "We can look at layouts and plan our attack based on their whereabouts using the consoles in this room." – everyone followed her then.

The whole time Garrus kept rolling the whole thing over in his head and every passing minute left him feeling more nauseous about the whole thing, although he wasn't at all sure why. He should have been jumping at a change of heart in Shepard to go hunt down a monster and permanently strike them off the list of menaces to the galaxy. Instead, just about every instinct he had was screaming: ' _wrong!'_ and Spirits guide him, he didn't know what to do about it.

As they stood there planning, he kept catching sight of Shepard's face in the reflection of one of the consoles she'd left her helmet next to. Rage, pain, hate and spite grew there minute by minute – becoming the mirror image of Zaeed's face just to the side of her. _Is that what she could become? Like_ _him_ _?_ Garrus shook his own head to clear it when he realised what he was thinking:

 _Am I going crazy? Am I standing here_ _now_ _thinking – whether it was wisdom or naivety that guided her before - that she was right, all those times before? Spirits... Is this the day I do for Shepard, what she did for me? Am I going to have to stand between her and Solem Dal'Serah... to stop her from becoming something she's not..?_

Planning came to an end, and Shepard pushed off the console in agitation as she grabbed for her helmet. Stalking towards the door with murder on her mind, Zaeed and Kasumi fell in behind her, Garrus being the last to leave.

 _I hope you know what you're doing Shepard._

* * *

REFERENCES:

'Close To The Bone' is the title of a Thompson Twins album that has two of my favourite songs on it which in a way, suit this story – both Shepard's and Zaeed's stories individually and the play out of their story together in various ways. If you're interested (I think you can find these on Youtube), the songs are: "Long Goodbye" and "Follow Your Heart".

If this chapter is a little short for too long a wait, it's because a certain very clingy 5 month old rescue-kitten distracted me and I accidentally permanently deleted 5 pages of my story! I *think* I've managed to re-write it well enough, but it was almost a laptop-out-the-window prams-out-of-pram moment, lol. She's a lovely little character though - she's mortified by people, more scared even than a feral or a stray who's learned human's aren't nice but here's the punch line: she came from a 'family' environment. We have no idea what they did to her. But now she's decided she likes us, especially with me it's rather like I've grown another appendage. Only problem is she's still learning not to attack the mouse on my screen...


	14. Chapter 14 - Spider Becomes Fly

~ Finding The Heart ~

Spider Becomes Fly

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

"We have disconnected the detonator from the explosive materials but manual detonation remains a threat. We suggest Operative Lawson bring biotic Jack and creator-Tali'Zorah to noted habitat locations to remove Blue Suns personnel and eliminate this threat. Security at the entrance nearest your location has been pacified and check-in status for that section is not scheduled for another ten minutes."

Tali, Jack and Miranda each let go a breath of relief: Legion was OK, and there _wasn't_ a merc with a trigger waiting to blow up the colony as soon as they walked through the door. That at least, was nice to know. Legion had hacked the external doors so entry should be easy. Even so, nobody was going to be safe until that bomb had been removed from the habitat entirely. It had been Miranda's idea to hang back a little, and wait to see if Legion was detected straight away.

Once it was clear he must have had time to get inside and the bomb _hadn't_ gone off they had started their own approach, thankful of the cover between them and the wall of the dome. They successfully gained entry unseen at the side of a warehousing facility that bridged the dome to the outside and Miranda crouched with Tali and Jack to review the next stage:

"So, if you're both willing: We carry out the plan. I think we can bluff that Shepard is here with another team that has secured the bomb. We can tell the half-truth that the bomb has been secured, and threaten them that if they don't surrender we'll reset the detonator after we get the civilians to safety, and leave them to burn. We say it's Shepard's orders if they don't comply." She looked towards the visored face of Tali's luminous violet eyes: "Tali: are you confident about that fake comms chatter you and Legion came up with?"

Tali replied: "Yes – I have no idea if it will be convincing enough but if I handle the civilians, I'll try to pretend I'm from Shepard's team over comms." She paused a moment, "If you hear the transmission stop, you know I'm in trouble."

"Is there any way you can check to see if Kasumi's had us blocked from cameras etc.? If her software is still operational, that could help."

"I'll see what I can do, Legion may be able to help me figure it out." Quietly they traversed through the next set of doors and with a nod from herself and Jack, Miranda wished Tali luck. They hadn't worked solo and small teams quite like this before 'The Suicide Mission' and never since - until now. _That_ thought brought back a lot of unpleasant memories for events that but for the grace of luck, would have lived up to the mission title.

* * *

"It's Shepard!"

A barrage of fire came from multiple directions as they breached the security perimeter of the foundry compound. Shepard with Zaeed took the left hand side, Garrus with Kasumi: the right, although nobody would know Kasumi was with him, for she had already cloaked. Although blue suns had set up positions above them, nestled in stacked containers and heavy duty machinery, they stormed the compound levelling guns to the fore as much as possible so as to avoid directly firing at the dome above.

Solem Dal'Serah had counted on forcing constraints upon these would-be assassins as they attacked in precisely that way: using the vulnerability of the habitat dome and Shepard's assumed knowledge of the risks of piercing it, not to mention her conscience, against her. He was playing on their need to move while all _his_ personnel remained entrenched in securable positions and places where they need only to hold on to something to steady themselves until the emergency anti-decompression field plugged the gap... Which would (if it worked) kick in no less than ten seconds after dome-breach. Having to move from cover to cover made Shepard's team more vulnerable... especially if someone (he smiled inwardly) had tinkered with certain safety protocols.

In a dome of this size of course, you would have to be close enough to the point of decompression for air to push you out of it with any great speed as it escaped. Down here on the ground, that would mean you'd have to be standing at the edge of the dome and have it blown right there where you were standing, more or less, to actually get thrown out with the explosion of air into space. So _that_ wasn't an option for dispatching Shepard – not here. The artificial gravity worked to help keep anything not directly affected by the breach grounded anyway...

 _Well, unless, that is, you messed with its 'safety protocols in case of breach' to make it do something interesting..._

Solem Dal'Serah had done exactly that. The artificial gravity would cut off – as opposed to increase slightly as it was meant to – in the event of a breach. Best thing about that being that if the person you were shooting at had kinetic shields to protect them, that'd only worsen their situation, since a greater proportion of momentum received from projectiles would be conserved.

 _Pity you can't make the automatic anti-decompression field manually operated in these domes..._

That way he could have had his men focus their fire on one target and shoot Shepard continuously upwards, watching then at leisure as she and her comrades floated... helplessly... out of the dome. That'd be great target practice for the men. Unfortunately, the field was rigged to prevent tampering in far too many complicated ways to be worth bothering with for just this. It was no fun to fix afterwards if the dome you'd done it to was your own, or one you intended to actually use afterwards. Nevertheless, Solem thought his plan should be fairly entertaining, even if the fun only lasted for ten seconds.

Once off the ground post-breach, Shepard and her people would find it harder to aim but next to impossible to dodge. He could fill her with as many bullets as he liked while she floated around like a puppet on a string. Plus he'd added another little change to the artificial gravity programme... Ordinarily it was supposed to increase to a higher level at first, but then cut off once the shield completed cover – that way anyone unfortunate enough to have drifted far up from the ground, would not subsequently come back down with truly _terminal_ velocity. Solem had rigged it to instead work in reverse, so first it would cut off, _then_ it would increase to heavier-than-normal gravity after the breach was sealed. He was going to see how far he could get Shepard to float upwards in that ten second interval. He sincerely hoped it would be high enough for her to come back down with an audible crunch – he couldn't help grinning while just thinking about it.

The only thing that bothered him now was a lack of intel. Solem Dal'Serah cursed the men who had already fallen and yet doubly failed to at least call in with _some_ intel on Shepard's team before she'd wiped them out. Yet still he grinned, thinking about how even so: he'd still beat her with this tactic. Even if  somehow she had been getting inside help... Which was about all he could think of to explain the problems they'd been having, never knowing he'd brought with him a stowaway spy and saboteur (Kasumi), all the way from Mindoir.

In the panic of preparing for Shepard, nobody had had the time to determine _why_ the shuttles weren't working. At first it looked like random bad luck, although once he knew they were under attack he'd suspected sabotage, even if he had no way to prove it. There had been a skeleton maintenance crew kept on K03 – civilians, and not particularly well-treated ones. It just looked like do-good Shepard had had a disgruntled maintenance engineer strip out the nav systems when they came in. Solem and his forces knew only that the shuttles were refusing nav inputs and that there was some nut in a Hammerhead outside the dome waiting to rocket them should they have tried to take off, anyway. Leaving had seemed like a bad idea regardless and making a stand looked to be the far better course of action.

Kasumi... had checked personnel files whilst she waited otherwise idly for Shepard to arrive. She'd checked for pay brackets and determined that they didn't pay their maintenance workers very well. So, for what work she had done that was visible (plus a little extra just for flair), she had done in such a way that would provoke Solem to think exactly that: that a maintenance engineer did it. He didn't know Kasumi had in fact already rounded those people up, and put them somewhere safe.

Solem had patiently laid this trap for Shepard, whilst Kasumi had patiently laid a trap for Vido and for _him:_ spider who would become fly.

Still thinking himself the spider, Solem continued to muse upon his expectation for success: _A fitting end for the brat who cost me so much..._ – he imagined, and continued patting himself on the arm for his own ingenuity in his ignorance. He suspected the air pressure drop would disorientate and cripple anyone stupid enough to have attacked Vido's base in the habitat wearing anything but an undamaged, fully-pressurised suit... And Solem knew more than a few of Shepard's team had a dumb habit of wearing less than was prudent, so, he smiled again: let that be their undoing.

Shepard didn't know he'd led the raid on her homeworld, did she? Oh how he had relished meeting her face to face, knowing that. It had helped him not kill her there and then, but rather arrange a better-suited demise for her. He had laughed at her in his mind, in every moment of that meeting. He would have seen it if she had known when he met her face to face at the Tolstoy farm holding on Mindoir - he would have seen it in her eyes.

\- He had no idea anything had changed.

\- He did not know the resolute rage that now drove her.

\- He had no idea that she was now coming for _him_...

* * *

REFERENCES:

'Tolstoy' is the surname I've given Vladimir. I did a Google search for 'famous Russian pacifists' and there is apparently one by that name listed on Wikipedia, so I used it since it rather reflects his character.

For those curious I realised I may have forgotten to mention something earlier: I meant to say that the Freyr system (whose name I invented for the one that has Mindoir in it) I imagined to be one of the systems found in the Pylos Nebula. That nebula is right on the fringe of the Attican Traverse and therefore close to the Terminus Systems – close enough (so my imagination goes) as to make a most tempting target for resentful Batarian slavers and warlords.


	15. Chapter 15 - My Rage, My Pain

~ Finding The Heart ~

My Rage, My Pain

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard dodged fire like she was psychic. In an adrenaline overload she sped the distances between cover while Zaeed carried out the brutal clean-up behind her. She wasn't interested in the small fry. _She_ was after only one person in that crowd, and she was doing only the bare minimum necessary to get past anyone between her and that primary target. Garrus pegged for lame or pinned down with concussive rounds anyone who shot at Shepard more than once as she advanced, otherwise he simply sniped them clean out of their positions with a shot straight through their skulls. Kasumi flanked right and took out by stealth anyone who happened then to shoot at _him,_ along with anyone else she happened to come across as she gracefully skirted the outer edge of the foundry-yard-become-battleground.

Solem Dal'Serah's subordinates had begun to panic, and shortly thereafter the overhead tannoy, rigged to the outside of the foundry presumably for health and safety purposes, crackled and hissed with the booming voice of a senior Batarian:

"Shepard hold fire or we'll crack the dome and you _and_ the rest of your team can leave the fast way."

Shepard stopped.

Everyone stopped.

There was nothing to be heard then but the slight and trying-to-be-quiet-about-it movements of mercs who were in the process of checking they had something to hold onto. That told Shepard more than she wanted to know: he'd messed with the artificial gravity somehow - _must_ have - and his men believed his threat not to be an idle one. There were curses from the wounded who found themselves unable to move, although it was unlikely they'd drift that far if the emergency shield kicked in when it should. _If. Could he have messed with that as well?_ She of all people present here knew that  this bastard... was ruthless. Ruthless enough to do all those things? Doubtlessly yes: and more. Her blood boiled.

Clearly Solem had briefed his subordinates about the likelihood of such a thing and they believed he'd do it. An injection of mild panic released the snare of malice and momentarily prevented her mind from being numbed or dumbed by rage, just long enough for logic to reassert itself as her primary modus operandi - at least for now.

"That's him. Has to be." She murmured half to herself, then spoke quietly but rapidly into her helmet comms as she cast glances around the compound:

"Kasumi: get inside and around the back of him if you can."

"Looks like there's a balcony on the outside of the building - he's probably in there. I'll get to it." Kasumi replied - quiet but almost breathless in her haste, being likely the only one of them actually still in motion. So long lived a high-end thief as Kasumi tended to develop a strong instinct for knowing when to 'get the hell out of dodge'. Kasumi didn't flinch in taking flight: she was already gone.

Shepard glanced (without turning her head) towards the location that Kasumi had noted. _That'd be where the foreman would usually keep an eye on loading and unloading in the yard – makes sense he'd be in there._

"Zaeed get inside or make sure you're within a button press of an airlock at all times." - Of the four of them, Kasumi and Zaeed had the least equipment to handle decompression – the cold or the loss of pressure – "Garrus, move between handholds but cover me." Garrus had his helmet, a pressurised suit, and besides which Turians ran decompression/loss of artificial gravity drills on their ships until they could handle it in their sleep. In that she trusted: _he'd_ be OK.

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking–" – Garrus started.

"He's probably messed with the anti-grav breach protocols." Shepard finished his sentence and in so doing: answered his question. Loudly then she yelled for whosoever needed to hear it:

"Well, what do you propose we do instead?"

She heard the sound of guns shifting, likely to point in the direction of her voice - her heart skipped a beat - but silence followed. Whilst that was relayed to Solem Dal'Serah she caught sight then of Zaeed behind cover, _not_ where he should be, yanking the helmet from a human Blue suns corpse and... putting it on-

"What the _hell_ are you _doing?!"_

She snarled at him with incredulity through gritted teeth, trying not to shout.

Zaeed nevertheless continued what he was doing as he answered:

"Got the same specifications as my suit. Thought the match-up might come in handy one day chasing Vido."

"Idiot!" She scorned him, then worried she'd given away his position too for how that almost came out as a yell. A quick glance around (nobody else seemed to be looking): "What about your arm?" She was trying desperately hard not to glare in his direction. It wasn't easy. She wanted right now to walk over there and throttle him.

"I'll live. Auntie G should activate inside of a minute, re-pressurisation not long after that. Just gotta hold on that long."

 _Auntie-G..._ Colonial slang she knew only because her mother used to do funny impressions of her grandma... The memory in context was enough to make her visibly flinch. Rage burned up inside of her again.

"I need you _fit_ and _able_ , not having an aneurysm on the god damned _floor!"_ She barked sharply through clenched teeth. He shrugged and smirked - she wasn't even looking in his direction and she knew that split second silence was punctuated by him doing just that.

The tannoy crackled to life again: "You come forward. I'll meet you in the yard, face to face. We'll settle this like civilised people. Vido doesn't want to lose any more men." – at the same time as Zaeed pulled a bandage from his belt and retorted:

"Been conscious through and survived worse. Wouldn't want to miss seeing you take that bastard's head off. He was on my to-do list."

He began to wrap up the bare skin on his arm – about the best he could do to protect it from the full damage of exposure to a sudden drop in pressure. He also had a gel stashed away for just such occasions that would (well... _could_... if it worked) form a flexible-but-sturdy temporary seal over that bandage up to his gloves and shoulder armour.

"We're waiting on your decision, Shepard." – The tannoy again. Shepard considered hurling a rock at it, because pegging it at this distance with a rock would be far more satisfying than using a gun. Her patience in rags, Zaeed being dumb... Last time those two factors combined, she punched him in the face and nearly left him for dead in burning refinery. It was a good thing he now disappeared out of sight. She'd contemplate shooting him in the leg otherwise. Huffing out an angry grimace at the predicament she'd found herself in, she banged her head back against the container she'd dived into cover behind just before the fighting stopped, and yelled a little louder at the four-eyed monster-with-a-mic:

"Alright. Agreed! But my team will end a lot of lives if you play any tricks, yours may well be one of them!"

To her great surprise, it was indeed Solem Dal Serah that she spotted descending the steps from that balcony office. _He still thinks I'm after Vido,_ she realised, _not him_. Shepard subdued a grin and did as instructed. Taking the rocket launcher from her back as she moved to stand up, she shifted it to carry as she swaggered forward, matching Solem Dal'Serah's pace as he came strolling confidently out from cover.

 _Civilised._ His very use of that word made her skin crawl. It made her want to rip out his tongue then ram it fist-first down his throat and out the other end. She thought about that, and other dark thoughts, as she came face to face... with a man whose name she would never now forget: _Solem Dal'Serah._ _This is the man... who turned me into what I am, who stripped me of any other choice I might have had to be someone different._

They stopped, a few meters away from one another. Deathly silence abounded the compound – all eyes were upon them. Solem rolled his shoulder back as he held his assault rifle easily across his girth. He had to but move a muscle to suggest he was bringing it to bear upon her, and she'd _end_ him. She watched him with a spiteful wish to see just that. _Try me._ _C'mon. Just try it, you butchering self-centred heartless bastard. Twitch. Move..._ But she had the advantage, and knew she should keep it that way. _Play the game._ She reminded herself: _play..._ _his_ _game, and_ _beat_ _him at it..._

"Why did you chase us?" He asked, and Shepard had to remind herself she had initially come here for Vido and that this was in fact a valid question... Since Solem Dal'Serah had promised to deliver Vido her message the day they'd caught him and his cronies at Vladimir's farm.

"Why did you run?" Shepard replied, innocently _._ Solem Dal'Serah smiled and laughed. She smiled back, acknowledging that laugh and its likely meaning. Calmly she added: "I _knew_ you had a lot more to do with it than just being Vido's lackey." Then she conceded with half a shrug and a sweetness of tone: "I thought if I followed you, I'd find out what."

"You have _Zaeed Massani_ with you, Shepard." Solem Dal'Serah smiled right back and answered cockily as he took a menacing step forward: "So  I thought maybe you were after Vido, right from the start." Planting his feet on the dusty floor plate he then declared: " _Bad_ idea for you to try to kill him."

Play for play. So he _had_ known they were after Vido, or suspected as much and based his actions upon that assumption. Her bluff was called at last and her original motives laid bare... but she had not yet called out his secret. He would never have dared to stand within arms' reach of her if he'd any idea that she knew. So she let him believe... allowed him to bathe serenely in the supposition that here stood, right in front of her, the murderer of her family, friends, and childhood dreams, thinking she didn't know. _Oh but I_ _do_ _know..._ She smiled the broader and retorted in silken tones:

"I told the truth when I said I didn't appreciate your racketeering operations on Mindoir... But you're right. I know who Vladimir is and who the mother of his child was to Zaeed, and I figured when we met you that you knew _I_ knew and  that's why I chased you. I knew you'd never take me to Vido willingly."

Solem laughed even before she finished but his face became a sneer: "I know you've experienced being blown to vacuum once before Shepard." He grinned, then his face turned cold. "I'm perfectly willing to give you a reminder of the experience."

Shepard had forgotten that it was the Blue Suns who'd recovered her body, that somebody besides Cerberus had seen her dead as a corpse could be, and knew from her injuries how she had died. _A little twist of the knife...Clever, Solem. Clever._ Then to herself more darkly: _So... There_ _is_ _someone else who knows the true depth of my having been dead._ The thought sent a chill down her spine, and she credited him for the use of the memory of her death against her in order to attempt to make her flinch.

It certainly made her blood run cold, despite reminding herself the dome was too big for her to wind up the other side of it from here. All the same, one could assert a certain mental comfort in knowing how such a death would unfold – there would be so much pain, but then no more. Ultimately, there would be no more. She knew. Experience had taught her. It afforded her the arrogance to stare up at the dome casually, then bring her eyes back down to level with his:

"Hmm. You'd really give your life to save Vido's?" – It _was_ surprising he'd put himself so at risk.

"Batarians don't feign loyalty, unlike humans who _usually_ say one thing then do another. All your talk of peace and 'humanity' while behind you stand soldiers with guns. Vido is the one exception to your species that I've ever found." Solem declared.

"Hah!" Shepard couldn't help but laugh at the irony in that then tried to stop herself. Somewhere in the distance she heard a gruff laughter echoing hers, and that bothered her a great deal for she knew who's it was and he wasn't supposed to be there. It shook the rage from her and supplanted it with worry, until with spite she wished him a demise well-suited to the stupidity of _not_ following her orders, for distracting her from _this_. No babysitting. Not today. Frankly either he understood her frame of mind right now and didn't get in her way, or he'd get whatever was coming to him. Her patience was in tatters. It was all she could do to manage to maintain it with this demon stood patronisingly in front of her.

Memories clouded her thoughts – the screams of her parents, herself being hunted across woodland in fear of her life and worse... She almost couldn't hear anything but her own heartbeat until her mind manage to remind her that she _was_ in control of this. Indeed... now _he_ was the hunted. _He_ should be the one thinking of running. She twisted her thoughts that way, and managed to pull her focus back.

"You think _Vido_ is worthy of your trust?" She chuckled and shook her head. "I suppose I should expect as much from a terrorist, brigand, and small-minded fool who made his fortune on the broken backs of slaves."

Solem Dal'Serah stood very still for a moment and all about them went stone quiet. So now he knew she knew that too... unless he had presumed it a racial slur. No, he worried now. Or at least he began to suspect... She could see it in his eyes – all four of them. He scowled and snarled back.

"You humans are all the same. Your people are invaders. Usurpers. You need to learn your _place_ in the galaxy." He lifted his head a little, to assert his superior height and stature – not small for a Batarian at all. "Vido knew this: he knew _his_ place was at my side."

Shepard frowned – it was not quite the answer she had expected and it presented many more questions. _Was_ _this_ _the true leader of the Blue Suns? Was it that Vido came under the control of this monster not the other way around? Is that where everything went wrong for Zaeed?_

Anything to give her one more excuse to end this son of a bitch, but the flipside was that perhaps she'd wrongly weighed up the powers at play here. Surely that couldn't be right? She now knew Vido was a master manipulator, and deep down, logic told her that whatever this Batarian _thought_ : it was _Vido_ still pulling the strings. There was something quite satisfying about the idea that this self-important demon having delusions of grandeur whilst being nothing more than a pawn for the person he considered to be his subordinate. _Nice meatshield Vido_ – she found herself congratulating him on his treachery...

 _This bastard deserves anything Vido could do to him._

"Vido... is under _my_ protection." He added, and then with a tilt of his head to the right (that was a demeaning insult in Batarian culture): "You try my patience Shepard. Now..." He levelled his gun at her. "Get out. Get out while you still can."

"Oh I don't think so..." Shepard frowned and lifted the rocket launcher (nervous breaths were taken in from all around her)... but slung it backwards over her shoulder back into its holster (many a sigh of relief was then heard). She placed her hands on her hips, looked at the floor casually. The confidence with which she scuffed a little dirt with her boot set many a gun to swinging all about – what _did_ she have up her sleeve? They might well wonder. She locked eyes with Solem, then slowly, deliberately lifted her head to face him directly:

"You see... Vido or no Vido, _you and I_ have some unfinished business."

Solem Dal'Serah stared back at her, his face set with suspicion, covering for the apprehension she was sure now he was feeling. "So... You know..."

He began to circle around her like a predator, and she moved likewise, refusing to be flanked, except that she was edging towards something she knew she could hold onto for steadier aim in the event of a breach.

"Know?" She almost breathed the words, her voice as low as ever she had spoken before: "Know that you killed my parents, my friends, _everyone_ I ever cared about?" Soft and quiet. "Yes. I know." She shrugged. He kept circling, so did she.

" _Your_ bastard mother killed  my brother. He was of infinitely greater worth than any of the humans on your pitiful colony. Including _you._ " He snarled.

She almost stopped walking then – his goading had in fact had quite the opposite effect. _So she_ _did_ _fight, then._ A tear threatened to fall in the revelation: her mother had fought well enough with the knowledge that her own mother had passed down to her, despite all her years of never using it in practice before that moment, and managed to kill one of the slaving bastards – the brother of the Batarian who led the raid, no less. _Go mom. I'm so proud..._ It was surely not intentional, but Solem Dal'Serah had just given Shepard a mighty gift in that knowledge: a deep sense of comfort and defiance. She honestly almost wanted to say 'thank you'. Instantly filled with pride, rage subsiding, a memory long forgotten crept into her thoughts...

 _You've got one hell of a temper little one_ – her mother, low so as to be heard by no-one in the next room, but sharp: sharp enough to cut deeply... _It can give you strength but you'd better learn to control it._

\- Hiro in tears hiding under the school table... bloodied and terrified...

\- She couldn't remember why...

 _-_ Her _own_ hands bruised and spotted with blood that  wasn't her own...

It had been a defining moment for her character: Eight years old. Bullying at school. One day Hiro had joined in, she didn't know why... but it felt like betrayal. Her response had been swift and brutal – a rage so severe it actually blacked out her capacity to record the memory of what instinct then bade her do to him. She's known only the aftermath, the shocking realisation it was her who had done it to him, and fear thereafter of what she may be capable. She'd sworn that day to never again let her temper get the better of her, for it was a powerful and frightening thing when let loose. She knew deep down that day: _she_ could kill.

 _Power without restraint is irresponsible, and you won't know the damage you've done until you regret it afterwards! Learn to wield it, or it will wield_ _you_ _!_ – Her mother's words.

Shepard closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath, then let it out again with the same measure of restraint. Miraculously she found herself once again calm, calm as _before_ she had known anything about this 'Solem Dal'Serah' or his role in her most painful history.

"Your _brother_ was a slaver and a monster. Just like you." She replied with conviction, looking him straight in the eye as she planted her feet and stood still. Solem stopped circling as well, sensing a change in her attitude.

"You can pay for the atrocities you've committed one of two ways. _I_ will show you the mercy you failed to show others. I offer you a choice: Come with me and I will ensure you get a fair trial where justice will prevail, or... You can face retribution here and now, by _my_ hand."

[Somewhere behind her and not to her knowledge, a certain Turian breathed a sigh of relief: _She passes the test... and remains the Shepard I've always admired._ Although he'd sworn to see Shepard as a person and no longer an idol, he took no small amount of pride in restoring that particular pillar of worship... Although he left a visible crack in it, like he did in all of them these days, just to remind himself to treat her justly.]

"A fair trial?" Solem Dal'Serah laughed, deep and booming. "I have done nothing wrong." He opened his arms wide then relaxed them. "No I think I'll stay right here. You have what, two or three men? I have twenty four and more yet at my call: you are surrounded and out-gunned. You never should have come here... Shepard. And running won't save you this time, _child."_

Somebody got off a rocket blast, planned or not it didn't matter: the dome cracked and air spewed forth into the near-vacuum of local space at a frightening speed as all hell broke loose below inside. Shepard had caught the tell-tale movement in her peripheral vision and grasped after the heavy (heavy) goods vehicle she'd managed to circle towards. Solem dived away opposite, likewise to secure his aim in the decompression, grabbing hold of some sturdy shelving bolted to the floor. Dust rose up from the floor, disturbed - the artificial gravity indeed had suddenly stopped working and even the heavy goods vehicle began to lift, millimetre by millimetre.

A blink of her eyes later and she was tracking where Solem was, and he her too. He fired at her twice, missed. Her eyes scanned the area around him and locked on target. She took a breath, steadied her aim as she counted – _One, two, three_... He fired again, missed. _She_ fired - one shot - and _she_ didn't miss, but it  wasn't Solem Dal'Serah that she'd aimed for.

All service shafts are segmented, and section seals close in the event of decompression. Yet whist the air released might be small in mass, it could nonetheless be violent if escaping through a small enough hole with a severe enough pressure difference to the other side. With her M-6 Carnifex shot, she had aimed not at him but instead pegged a service shaft in the decking below. In counting seconds, she had given the air pressure time to drop by a greater degree, so that _when_ that bullet-sized hole blew in the roof of the service shaft below where Solem _had_ wobbled in his grip, the fact that the shelving he held onto was attached to the floor, hadn't helped him. _Had._ Past tense: he wobbled there no more.

The gush of air had caught him off guard and in an and eerily-muffled gutteral yell – dulled by hiss of the air escaping the vent and the lessening of air molecules otherwise between them to transmit the sound – he was gone from where he had been. Shepard's face fell cold and expressionless behind her visor, as she saw him speeding upwards. Solem's screams of Vido's name quietened the further away he travelled – up, up and up, with the direction of air movement further muting his cries that otherwise would have been more than clear enough to hear. Perhaps he'd worked out – in that instant – that Vido had truthfully considered him expendable. The closer he got to the breach, the faster he began to travel. She stared at him unsmiling:

"By _my_ hand, then."

Air and the things carried with it quietly gushed towards oblivion for a few more seconds, then all abruptly ceased to move – the emergency containment field having asserted itself. Solem Dal'Serah _hadn't_ in fact been ejected from the dome but hung shy of its edge by a good hundred metres or so. His own plan laid bare turned then against him: the artificial gravity kicked in with a vengeance.

Shepard found herself sprawled on the floor. She flinched into a roll and turned onto her back with tremendous effort, suddenly feeling as if a dozen strong arms fought her every motion. Desperately her eyes searched to track where Solem was before she caught sight of his flailing body plummeting with increasing speed.

She juddered a breath. Tears welled in her eyes.

"I hope it kills you on your way down..." - deep and quiet, then louder, scornfully through clenched teeth: "I hope you break _every_ _..._ _bone_ _!"_

A single tear escaped across her cheek as she scrambled to her feet against overbearing gravity that would ground, unable to move, any other human _without_ her biological modifications or the deep-seated _need_ to see what she now looked for to witness. She barely saw him fall let alone heard his scream at the speed he was travelling – only that it got suddenly louder and then abruptly ended in a blur of motion and a wet crunch.

Solem Dal'Serah, _Hunter Of Worlds,_ had come to an end.

Audible even through the thin veil of atmosphere that remained in the dome, it was a sound to turn any stomach. Pain washed over Shepard – the bruises and muscle strains she'd just received falling to the ground then battling the high 'g' to get to her feet, melded with the rawness of emotions she had never thought to feel ever again. Her face contorted in agony and breathing was hard, but she walked over to the barely-even-recognisable, crumpled heap ahead of her, and stared at what had once been Solem Dal'Serah. She coughed a laugh, and another tear rolled down her cheek as she dropped to her knees – gravity and emotions combined; too heavy to stand.

It was only then that she realised the wider cost of what had just occurred – the dome had _breached_ , anyone without pressure suits and air supply caught outside of a building possessing secured airlocks was now potentially dead, and even those with suits could be injured or dead thanks to Solem's tampering with the artificial gravity.

"Oh god..." She exclaimed, looking around in panic: "...Garrus?! Zaeed?! Kasumi?!" She yelled, and almost heard her child-self in the tone of it. Silence answered her. There was a momentary pause in which she lived out her worst fears, until she realised then that she'd forgotten to use the comms. Standing up as against the heavy 'g' for no other reason than because it felt like fighting against something difficult was what she needed, she tried again (remembering to activate comms this time):

"...Garrus? Zaeed? Kasumi?" She yelled, stronger this time: "Call in!"

Footsteps behind her made her jerk her head around, as a hand landed on her shoulder:

"I'm fine." – It was Garrus.

The artificial gravity returning rapidly to normal together with Garrus' voice was a dizzying combination that left her light-headed with relief, literally and figuratively: a great weight was lifted. It was giddying, so much so that she fell once again to her knees. Garrus knelt down on one knee next to her and again put his hand on her shoulder. Trying to see through her dusty visor, he inwardly damned their helmets and the need presently to be wearing them.

"Are you?" He asked plainly.

There was a moment where she did nothing but look at him, and helmets be damned he could nevertheless just about see her eyes enough to see the pain in her expression. He placed his other hand on her forearm and said:

"It's over now Shepard. He's gone."

To his great surprise, he then had to awkwardly accept the Shepard-shaped hulk of a body throwing itself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck. Her helmet thunked against the side of his and he almost lost his balance in the impact.

"Someone had better make sure the air pressure's up again. No way I'm donning smelly Blue Suns armour just to get home." – That was Kasumi over comms, presumably inside: She was far too smart to stick around outside when a dome-breach was imminent. Shepard gurgled a laugh through falling tears, and self-consciously wondered if Kasumi could tell.

Garrus hugged the Shepard-lump and felt utterly privileged in that moment, and very, very glad. _Closure._ He saw now how much she must have needed it, but had never had it – likely never even dreamed of having it – until now. She'd never really spoken about what happened on Mindoir. He knew more about it from the files that C-Sec had on her, than from anything she'd ever volunteered. He sighed, but he was proud she'd done what she'd done, managed somehow to offer mercy instead of outright killing the bastard, like he would have done himself.

It hurt a little, actually: that without anyone helping her to do it _she'd_ managed to do just that. He knew he himself could never have let Sidonis go without _her_ help. In that moment, as she clung so tightly to him, the thought occurred to him that if she were Turian he'd have been so sure right there and then that she was were the one he'd choose as a mate that he'd have asked her to marry him on the spot... She was one of a kind, was Shepard. No doubt about it. But then...

"Zaeed?" Shepard let go of him of a sudden, frantically looking around.

She began retracing her steps to his last known position. ...And in that moment this fool of a Turian was _also_ reminded that if he _had_ ever been capable of getting over his interspecies awkwardness to fall in love with this human woman... He'd left that a little late. _Fool._ He told himself. _Fool. Spirits... I'm such a fool..._ and tagged along behind her, worried then that she should have to face another trauma in the same day. All the while he was mentally kicking himself because there were many reasons one _might_ be reasonably glad to see the demise of a certain bloodthirsty bounty hunter, but freeing Shepard from a romantic entanglement at the cost of painful emotional loss to her, was  not one of them. That would be something he'd never forgive himself for being 'grateful' for and he knew the day he did that, he'd prove her decision to mate with Zaeed to be the better one.

Shepard meanwhile found the door that Zaeed was supposed to have gone through – if he'd damned well followed the orders he'd been given – and opened the outer lock. Garrus was close behind, stomach a knot of Batarian Karnack worms, explaining to Kasumi over comms as he followed that Zaeed was still missing and they were heading inside. Kasumi would move to intercept, doubtless checking for Zaeed herself as she went.

"Zaeed?!" Shepard yelled louder into comms, a little more frantic, waiting for the lock to cycle for the inner door as the outer door closed and the compartment re-pressurised. It was of course slower than it would be under normal circumstances. The moment it opened they raced inside and around a corner to find then that Zaeed _was_ alive, albeit in the process of getting choke-locked by a Turian merc, surrounded by a pile of bodies and the helmet he'd been wearing tossed to one side with a crack across the faceplate.

The merc (who was no small Turian) had Zaeed's arms trapped behind his back and the two of them seemed for the moment completely oblivious to their onlookers. Zaeed stomped the Turian's foot and failed to get a reaction. He was going red in the face with exertions and lack of oxygen as he continued to struggle and Shepard was about to yell at the merc to stop but then Zaeed, veins popping out on his forehead and around his eyes, suddenly pulled this sneer... Some spark of inspiration having clearly just struck him and now he was going to get even, so she and Garrus waited politely out of the way.

He frowned with the sweat coming down over his brows as he brute-strengthed an arm free with a "Huurrrr-argh!" and began pounding the Turian with his fist repeatedly in his less armoured waist. He twisted and turned in the lock as he did so and got a foot behind the Turian's ankle. His foot caught on the spur which he then yanked sideways, all the while preventing the Turian from snapping his own neck with his now-free hand. Zaeed dropped on his right knee in the same motion which released his other arm just enough to allow that hand to grab after a knife from his boot... which with a little more effort he managed then to free enough to ram backwards and up into the Turian's off-balance stumble, right where the Turian's armour was weakest at the groin.

Springing loose then from the slackened choke hold, Zaeed turned and roared as he spun round and kneed the crumpling Turian in the stomach. Grabbing the Turian's helmet as he fell, Zaeed then stabbed him three times in the neck down through his shielded collar. Blue blood gushed outwards in a fountain as the man's body fell to the floor, shuddered a few times, and then lay still. Zaeed stood a moment over the merc's body, catching his breath before he turned, noting company had arrived.

"Sorry 'bout that." – Gravelly and hoarse. He coughed hard a few times, shaking his whole body as he rubbed at his throat. He dropped to one knee to place down the knife while he reached for and holstered his rifle and pistol – "I was busy."

Cleaning the blade of his knife on his gloved wrist before sheathing it, he stood up and locked eyes with Shepard. Her eyes must have said something through her helmet for he added with a not-quite-as-cocky-as-one-might-expect smile:

"Hope I didn't worry you."

To which Shepard stormed forward and yelled, index finger angrily pointed just inches from his nose: "I don't care if you're in a choke lock fighting for your life being hung upside down by your ankles: you call in when I ask you to!"

...Then she breathed a sigh of relief. Kasumi rounded the corner to the right of them, Garrus having spun to face the noise with gun levelled only to relax again as he heard her chuckle quietly to what she must have just overheard.

"Wow. What did I miss?" She asked and smiled, gracefully tiptoeing over the several bodies littering the floor.

"There was an ambush on this side – I got in the door and they all went for me. Lucky they wanted me alive more than dead, I guess." Zaeed huffed, still catching his breath a little and stretching muscles he'd probably strained. "Their mistake."

"Oh..." Kasumi put her hands on her hips and jutted them out to one side. "I _think_ there was an ambush waiting on my side too... If you want to call it that." She smiled and fluttered her eyelids. "I just went around them. Just finished cleaning them up actually. I cleared the way ahead first."

"Yeah? Well: some of us don't have active cammo, do we?" Zaeed looked at her with a solemn stare.

"Mmm. Anyway I'll lead you to where Vido's holed up. Follow me." Kasumi nodded at Shepard and headed off down the corridor without a single question, Garrus and Shepard in tow – except that Zaeed grabbed Shepard by the elbow and yanked her back. The other two noticed, and politely kept on walking.

"Hey." He said, "Take that helmet off a sec." He held her by both shoulders while she numbly obliged. He looked her in the eyes then and asked: "You OK?"– Which was odd in its own way to hear from anyone, even odder from _his_ lips. It was doubly hard to answer, realising the obviousness of what her own face probably looked like right now to prompt such a question.

"He's dead." Shepard nodded and looked elsewhere.

He could see dampness on her face, her eyes a little red, too – all telltales of tears having fallen. Zaeed took in a deep breath and let it go. He'd have killed Solem in a heartbeat without giving it a second thought, given the opportunity, and he'd have been cheering in a bar about it afterwards, but Shepard... Her logic confounded him sometimes. He could tell she was actually feeling a little _guilty_. She was thinking 'but what if innocent people got sucked out thanks to me?'... Pointless fucking moral question.

"Working for Vido is a death sentence. Anyone killed by that breach would've known that." - He offered in consolation, tightening his grip around her shoulders where the joints of the armour would give a little, but she said nothing.

Shaking her to make her look at him he said: " _Look_ at me. I knew of that bastard for a _long_ time. He would have had the whole place rigged. Collateral's a pastime for that son of a bitch – one of the reasons I objected to Vido cosying up with him way back when. He messed with Auntie G. He goddamn  intended to blow the dome. He meant to kill us all. Wouldn't 've cared who went with us. Understand?"

"I know that. But maybe I could have..." She started but he cut in:

"No. You damn well _couldn't_. And he didn't deserve any better – and neither did anyone else here."

Suddenly it hit her then: how willing she had been to _find_ reasons to kill Dal'Serah and not do anything other than that.

"You don't know that Zaeed!" She frowned at him. "You don't know why the people following him were following him or working for the Blue Suns. You don't know if any of them were good people at heart!" There was this moment where she looked briefly but earnestly into his eyes and pleaded for him to try to understand, just this once.

He shrugged and removed his hands from her shoulders. "They followed Vido, they followed Solem Dal'Serah. Doesn't matter if they were 'good at heart' Shepard. Look what they were willing to do in the name of the bastards they worked for." He gestured with a hand. What he said made a painful lot of sense but he hadn't realised her crisis was more about herself.

"You don't understand." She shook her head. "Someone as good at logic and inter-connective reasoning as I am can _make_ reasons fit the narrative _I_ want to play out. It helps me make strong, good decisions, but when I'm emotionally invested, emotionally compromised: I can make that skill work to my bias. I can and I did. This time. I was so blind with rage..."

"Are you fucking off your _trolley?!_ He just tried to kill you!" Zaeed pointed angrily at the general direction of where they'd come from, turning about in a circle back to face her. He glared at her with disbelief until Shepard half-sniggered, half-snuffled, and eventually sniffed a slight smile, baffling him all the more. A moment later she replied softly:

"You sound like Samara sometimes... The way you see things as black and white."

"Sometimes you have to Shepard," He rubbed his forehead, even more confused by that comparison. Then he shook his head as he put hands on his hips and stared towards the floor at the bodies that lay there, littered around where they had walked from. "Sometimes people don't give you any other goddamned _choice_."

Shepard took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly through pursed lips. She shook her head. Maybe he was right... sometimes. She felt tired, so tired. The questions so long unanswered that had been answered for her today, seemed to fill her with yet more to ask. It was overwhelming, to contemplate all that had come to pass. Unfortunately she still had work to do – she _always_ had work to do, and it was time for her to be getting on with it. She tautened her jaw and turned to walk away.

"You see things just as black and white you know." Zaeed stood still, hands on hips and looked at her under raised brows. She turned around to face him, questioningly, feeling slightly insulted.

"Only difference is the balance point. For you, what matters is what good some fucker could do in future. Your focus is doing the 'right thing'. Me? What matters is who's done wrong and what bad they did. My focus is nailing the bastards who get my attention by fucking something up. We're two sides of the same coin, you and I."

Shepard stopped and thought about that for a moment and had to admit: he might actually have a point, but it was too much to think about right now. Too much to take in, and they had work to do.

"C'mon." She beckoned, "We need to finish Vido once and for all." He nodded and followed her as they picked up the pace to catch up with the other two.

Only then did it occur to her that he had actually _paused:_ paused his own long-standing, so temptingly near-end quest for revenge - and why? Just to ask if she was OK. Back on Zorya, he flew into a fit of rage whenever she hesitated, and when she delayed to save the workers from the results of his rashness and cost him his quarry, he pulled a gun on her ready to kill her for it. Now _he_ was the one who delayed... and he had done it out of concern _for her_. He cared... That was what it meant. He'd cared an awful lot, to have put any thought for her ahead of his want to hunt Vido...

And she'd just brushed it aside and stormed onwards.

That stung as much as it touched deeply. Her emotions were in turmoil. It was all she could do just to keep pushing forward. _Just get to the end of the mission,_ she had to tell herself, _you can think about it then. You can_ _talk_ _about it then._ She vowed she would, because he deserved that much, and because part of her was starting to depend on the hope... that _she_ could depend... on _him_.

* * *

REFERENCES:

Passing the test and remaining Shepard? That was a minor nod to the character 'Galadriel' in Tolkien's 'Lord Of The Rings' where she is offered the one ring but ultimately refuses the temptation it would offer her.

'Hunter of Worlds' is yet another nod to the author C J Cherryh, who wrote a small book by the same title.

"I hope it kills you on your way down, I hope you break every bone." – This is a mish-mash of lines taken from the lyrics of 'On your way down' – a song found on the album 'Darkest Days' by Stabbing Westward. Incidentally the title of this chapter ('My Rage, My Pain') are lyrics from the first song (sharing the title of the same album). If you enjoyed the 'Fragile' album by Nine Inch Nails, you may like that one too although I don't know if the band is still together now.

The little bit describing how Shepard lost her temper as a child and flew into a fit of violent rage she couldn't remember afterwards was a moment from my own life – a lesson not soon forgotten but one I taught myself (I had no wise mother to tell me such things).


	16. Chapter 16 -What Price

~ Finding The Heart ~

What Price...

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

"Daddy?"

Uhuru clung to her father's coat as he nervously unpacked the essentials he'd crammed into the travel bag before their 'escort' had bid them leave their home. He had to trust in _a legend_ now: the legend of the great _Commander Shepard_ , 'paragon of justice' (and all that rubbish)... But he was too sensible for that. He was used to being the chaff tossed about on the wind blown by powers and people that affected his life beyond his control.

Vladimir had never in his life known anyone that couldn't be bought or intimidated out of doing the right thing. He counted himself among that number, since having principles doesn't mean a damned thing if you can't afford to keep them, and that was the soul-crushing reality of the life he'd lived... At least he'd always _wanted_ to do right though - not like that scoundrel: Zaeed.

Now they'd had to leave their home – him and Uhuru – just so Zaeed could play out whatever his quest for revenge required of him for his _imagined_ role in Alice's life. Vladimir shook his head with a sigh: Zaeed couldn't hold a candle to what _they'd_ had together. No way. But Vladimir did have to remind himself periodically, that he now knew Zaeed _hadn't_ actually been a part of their troubles for all these years past the way he'd been led to believe. Zaeed hadn't even known Alice had survived the fire and from the way he spoke of her now, years after the fact. He had dropped to his knees at the sight of Uhuru, seemingly having never known of her existence until that moment. It was almost as if he really _had_ cared for Alice... Although  that Vladimir just couldn't swallow whole.

Even if by some miracle it was true, that only made Zaeed twice the moron Vladimir had ever thought him to be. Back then, Vladimir was pretty damned sure Zaeed cared about a lot of things more than he cared for _Alice_. He'd even seen him with another woman. _That_ had made his blood boil. What happened to Alice later was also definitely his fault anyway, even now: Zaeed had always been bad news. Her involvement with him had nearly got her killed – and that was fact. What worried Vladimir was Zaeed showing up _now_ and behaving like he had some stake in their lives - _Uhuru's_ life - and he'd worried about that every waking minute, of every day, since that afternoon in the graveyard.

He took a deep breath and tried to stand tall. He told himself he wasn't about to let Zaeed entangle Uhuru in his cavalier and endless pursuit of personal vendettas, no matter what 'the great commander Shepard' – if that's who she really was – told him. He had his doubts about that, personally: it had been all over the news that she was dead a few years back.

"Daddy!" Uhuru was nothing if not persistent.

Vladimir sighed and looked up at the ceiling and said a little prayer to god. She had her mother's open heart, did Uhuru. Sometimes he wished she hadn't... but he would reprimand himself whenever he caught himself thinking such a thing, and tell himself that he should be grateful of any part of her that reminded him of the woman he loved - his brightest star - who he now missed each and every day... More than the caged wild bird misses the sky. _Better she inherit Alice's traits than my own_ , he thought, and miserably once again wondered if he had ever truly deserved Alice, and whether he was as good a father as little Uhuru deserved. He prayed only that Uhuru's openness and kindness not bring her to harm. He looked down at the eager little face under his elbow:

"Daddy's got some things to sort out. I'll be with you in a minute. Be patient for daddy."

Uhuru pulled a twisted face, thought about that, and he could almost see her trying to count the seconds up to a minute before deciding she would burst if she couldn't ask something. It made him smile, despite his mood. He could feel her little hand scrunching up his coat until finally the words just tumbled out:

"Are these _aliens_ daddy?"

Vladimir froze with embarrassment, and furtively looked up from his business beneath worried brows to check if they had heard her. He looked towards the Asari first, then the other one (he wasn't sure what he was). Neither reacted in any way. Their expressions unreadable: perhaps they were just the cold professionals they seemed to be – he wasn't sure – but he cleared his throat nonetheless and awkwardly tried to answer her question. _Quietly._

"Yes. They are aliens. They are here to look after us," He said with a nervous smile, and feigned confidence, hoping he might endear himself and Uhuru to them in some small wayn if they _did_ hear him – it was what Alice would have asked of him. It was one of the last things she ever said to him:

 _Have more faith in people – give them the opportunity to be good. Behave as if you believe them to be better than you think. Sometimes they'll rise to meet your expectations._

It hurt – to try to follow in her footsteps, to teach the things he thought she'd want Uhuru to learn – but he tried. That said, he still couldn't stop himself from quickly adding:

"But you mustn't bother them Uhuru. They have a job to do and you mustn't get in their way." He carried on doing what he had been doing.

Uhuru, thought about that and turned away. Unperturbed by her father's warning, she cocked her head and stared at these strange, colourful people. She'd seen Turinans and Bat-ar-ians before. She didn't like them. But these two were different-looking to them. And they were really different from each other. She didn't think they were related.

Daddy was always scared of _everyone_. Her face crumpled into a frown: since Mama died she had tried to be brave for his sake, because Mama always did that before... Although not when the _bad_ people dressed in blue armour came (Daddy was right about _them_ ) – sometimes Turinans or a Bat-ar-i-ans. She _really_ didn't like the Bat-ar-i-an. Solly Dall-era. She called him 'Silly Dolly' once and he gave her this 'look' that made her think she was going to die – right there. She used to run and hide whenever she heard him speak or saw him get out of a car to visit after that.

Since Mama died, she at least tried to keep him in sight when he was around, and she'd stare at him hatefully... albeit from a safe distance. Usually from under the table in the dining room, or the top of the stairs. She _really_ _really_ didn't like Solly Dall-era. Silly Dolly. Bad man. He made her feel small and like mud in a puddle you'd kick with a boot. Mama was always upset after he visited. He must be a _bad man_. But he wasn't with _these_ people.

She had been watching the blue snail-lady and the green lizard-man since she first saw them, and although they didn't smile much, they seemed very calm. Nice calm... not like the other ones with the scary white eye on their chests and shoulders. Not like them. She definitely liked the lady the lizard man and snail lady had come with though. The _Human_ one. When _she_ spoke to her, she got down on one knee and spoke softly... and she smiled, too. She said that with these two alien people, she and Daddy would be  safe, and she really seemed to mean it. She had looked Uhuru right in the eye and not like she was a baby at all. Uhuru _trusted_ that lady. She reminded her of Mama.

As for the old man the lady was with who had talked about Mama at the graveyard: he _looked_ scary – really scary at first – but she didn't think that lady would be with him if he was nasty like Silly Dolly. Aaaand... He had spoken to her in the same way as the lady had, and Uhuru _liked_ that. Uhuru didn't know what it was like to have uncles or aunts or grandparents, but from the way other children described theirs at nursery, she thought the lady and old man would make good ones.

 _And I bet they'd do a great aeroplane! Even now daddy says I'm bigger and heavier!_

She thought about that and really, really hoped they came back and maybe then she could ask for one. And maybe when they went home, she'd ask the lady if she'd like to climb her favourite tree – it was her _special_ place (the place she'd run to when the bad men were angry and home didn't feel safe). Ooo and then they could feed the ducks at the pond together! She wished she could do those things _now_. It was the first time really that people came to visit who she liked. It was exciting! And if that lady was nice, and the old man with her was really nice too even though he was scary, then surely the snail lady and lizard man were nice too. Having figured this out for herself, she took a deep breath, let go of daddy's trousers and rather confidently, she thought, strolled up to the lizard man.

"Where do you come from?" She asked, trying not to be scared, trying to smile as nicely as she could - Mama would say to do that.

Thane – who had learned from duct rats on the Citadel, the confidence and brusqueness that Human children could have – smiled and blinked both sets of eyelids before he calmly indulged the eager little face that now looked up at him:

"I was born on Kahje – the Hanar homeworld."

Uhuru frowned and ducked her head a moment, ribbon-ends settling as her braids fell forwards. She thought about that for a moment before looking up again.

"Are you a 'Hanar' then?"

Thane smiled at the plain and simple logic that had brought her to that assumption. "No, I'm not a Hanar. Hanar are tall with lots of tentacles... They live in Kahje's oceans. They rescued my people, and now we live with them."

Uhuru thought about that quietly, trying to remember what 'tentacles' were. She stared at the snail lady a moment and thought about that before taking a step towards her:

"Are you a Hanar?"

Samara smiled and gasped a short laugh, it had been a long, long time since she had been around small children and yet in all her near one thousand years of living, she'd never once been mistaken for a Hanar before. The novelty took her a little by surprise. The child's friendliness _also_ touched something long forgotten within her, and it stung – bittersweet. For just a moment, tears welled up in her eyes for the daughter who had shared an abundance of this child's boldness. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathed stillness, and recalled The Code... Centering herself in peace once more. Bowing her head calmly she answered:

"No child, I am _Asari_. I come from Thessia."

"Uhuru!" Vladimir snapped, "I told you not to bother them." He looked at their escorts with pleading in his eyes: "I'm sorry – she's just at that age -" He began but he was cut off by the raising of a blue hand, fingers together, as Samara slowly lowered her eyelids. He fell silent. She then calmly opened her eyes to meet his and spoke:

"Please." She lowered her hand. "It's quite alright. I had children her age once, long ago." She lowered her head slightly and moved her eyes to meet Uhuru's. "But I would request one thing:" – uplifting her chin and eyebrows with lowered lids for a sombre, all-knowing smile - "That we be properly introduced." She then lowered her head again: "My name is Samara. Can you say that?"

"Sa-mar-a." Uhuru echoed perfectly. "That's a nice name."

She bowed, which she'd seen people do sometimes when they were meeting someone new, and introduced herself.

"My name is Uhuru." - She blushed, a little embarrassed that she'd forgotten her manners in her excitement. Mama would've scolded her for that.

Samara nodded, "You should always know the names of the people you are talking to." Uhuru bowed her head in shame and nodded. Samara then gestured to the lizard-man: "This is Thane."

Uhuru bowed in Thane's direction and put her fidgeting hands behind her back and tried to control them. "Do you have children, too?" She looked at Thane.

"Yes. I have a son. He is grown up now." Thane smiled, but there was something else there Uhuru could tell. Like he was sad. Maybe he was sad his son was all grown up now?

She turned to Samara again: "What about _your_ children?"

* * *

"Alright this is how it's going to work:" Shepard talked to the faces around her. "Zaeed and I are going in, straight through that door in plain sight. We'll dive for cover as needed but until that moment, _we're_ your cover - the distraction you two will need to get out of sight. Garrus: take up a position in the gantries. You're going to watch our backs and be _our_ sniper and spotter. Kasumi: you need to work with Garrus to take out any other snipers up there and your priority is to watch Garrus' back - similar drill to the courtyard but they've got a bigger advantage this time. Whatever happens, Vido isn't going to make an escape this time. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him but I'm sure whatever trick he has up his sleeve, it probably won't work if he's  dead, so, worst comes to the worst: _end_ him."

There was a frustrated gust of breath just to her left: Zaeed was not happy – not one little bit about _that,_ judging by his silence. She could almost hear him say: _If anyone's gonna end that miserable bastard's life, it should be me_. Nonetheless he held his tongue, and perhaps what Shepard had told him had finally sunk in: better that Vido be dealt with – by the hand of whoever could manage it – than to give him the opportunity to get away again. He was, after all, _that_ crafty.

She continued: "Ambush is more his style, so I'm not worried about bombs but you listen to our conversation, and Garrus: you take him out the moment you think that needs to happen. I want you to try to keep an eye on him at all times." She nodded to the team in general. "If they spring an ambush, they'll catch us, close in, but then face an attack from two sides."

She checked her ammunition and readied her rifle. "Are we ready?"

"Ready." Came echoing assurance back from the three of them.

Garrus nodded. Kasumi cloaked. Her shimmering invisible form hacked the door as Garrus crept off to one side – the side Kasumi's plans indicated there would be access to the gantries. Shepard and Zaeed stood slap bang in the middle of the door way – quite the gamble – with rifles levelled, ready to dash and dive for cover the other side as soon as it opened. The doors clunked open and they were met with silence. That meant only one thing: _trap_. Someone was waiting for them to come inside. Well, there was no going back now, so Shepard stepped up: walking confidently forwards, Zaeed at her side, both with an arrogant swagger to their steps.

"I know you're in here, Vido." Zaeed yelled up around the foundry and across the wide open space ahead of them where in front of the forge there lay the workbenches of a mechanised assembly line (thankfully inoperative). The heat hazed the air in front of them and it was a wonder Zaeed's voice would carry or be heard at all above the din of crackling, steaming metal.

"I was wondering when you'd show, _old friend_." – Vido's voice, not on overhead but somewhere nearby. So he definitely _was_ in here, _somewhere_. Zaeed's blood began to boil, but he checked his surroundings, marked every piece of cover there was and logged in his head all canisters and their colours, and therefore what angle a shot or grenade might be thrown to set up an explosion with the biggest radius to take out anybody _behind_ that cover.

"Sorry. Thought I was _early_." He retorted. Shepard slowed and he matched her pace. "You _did_ say 'see you in another twen'y years', right?" Shepard listened to this banter between old enemies and watched the edges. A lot of dark around them – a  lot of dark.

"You never did know when to quit." Vido's voice echoed across the foundry walls around them. "Shepard, you still got this loser on your payroll?" – To which Shepard planted her feet. Zaeed jerked to avoid stepping ahead of whereupon his eyes met hers and she gave the briefest of secret smiles.

"While it suits me." She scanned the shadows around the fringes of the foundry. "But unfortunately for you, I'm tired of mopping up the mess you've been making all over the galaxy." – Silence returned. Perhaps it was something he'd expected following her resurrection but not so soon, or perhaps it was an honest surprise that _she_ might have a bone to pick with him too. Continuing, she explained:

"The Blue Suns have worked to keep the entire Terminus Systems unstable and at each other's throats for more than twenty years now. You tried to get a hold of indoctrination technology. You tried to sell people to the Collectors. You even had a hand in the attempted sale of _my_ body to them. That's enough for me to hold a personal grudge against you even without you having as your second in command: the very slaver whose raid on my homeworld killed my _family_ and everyone I cared about." She sneered and tilted her head as she scanned this way and that:

"You must know as much as I do by now that the Reapers are real and they are _coming_ for us Vido, _all_ of us, but instead of helping I always seem to find you _in my way_ – and I assure you: that's one place you do  not want to be."

"Just good _business_ Shepard. Nothing personal." So came Vido's retort, shifting position again as it was spoken but still too many directions it could have come from – echoes against echoes despite the warmth in the room.

"Oh, yes – I nearly forgot. By the way? Your partner is dead." – There was no reply to that, which she hoped meant it struck a sore spot. She got the impression that Solem had been his leading hand for many years; he would surely be a headache to replace. In the silence of Vido's response to that, she added with a touch of silk:

"Sorry it was just good business Vido..." She left a pause before adding: "Although I do have to admit that one _was_ obviously personal, too."

There was a pause, then out of the darkness, spat with venom: "Solem? He was nothing to me. I just _used_ him."

With that, his voice abruptly had a closer ring to it – _behind them_. She and Zaeed spun around. Suddenly there was a face for the voice. Vido walked slowly around them, at a distance. Shepard and Zaeed tracked him with their gun barrels, reluctant to fire. ' _I have a whole company of bloodthirsty bastards ready to kill or_ _be_ _killed on my command.'_ – Vido's words at their first meeting. Shepard had been thinking about that statement very carefully lately:

 _Kill the leader and the rest will surrender? Huh. For all we know he actually managed to find and_ _keep_ _a piece of indoctrination tech, in which case kill the leader and expect to be dead yourself from his fanatics shortly thereafter._

Refusing to panic (much less show it), Shepard regarded Vido with lazy observation as he walked casually around them, even though every ounce of sense she had was screaming: _Trap! Trap! Trap!_ He stopped just ahead of the forge at the end of the foundry – his silhouetted outline cut against the glow of pouring metals and composites, shimmering edges against the heat. Just looking at him was enough to blind peripheral vision and leave an afterimage, even with reactive visor filters working.

Strolling a little closer he shrugged: "Solem was becoming a bit of a nuisance anyway." His face, now more clearly visible, scrunched up as if he were sucking something sour: "As are _you_."

A motion of his hand and rifles were heard readying up around the place. With that, there was also a sudden clatter of boots and guns – enough for Shepard's heart to skip a beat: _A lot of boots and guns_. Certainly there were enough to make her and even Zaeed pause for thought – they were surrounded, and by no small number. Shepard counted fifteen including Vido on the ground surrounding her and Zaeed, and there were doubtless more in the gantries above if Vido had this many to spare.

Garrus in her ear: _"Things might get ugly Shepard. Five snipers up here in the gantries. I can see another twenty gun-lights minimum off in the wings down on your level, spread rear and left of you."_

Vido sauntered lazily closer still – purposefully standing _just_ out of Zaeed's reach, two men and their guns just over his shoulder. "Time to put you down like the mad dog you are, Massani –"

"SON OF A-!" Zaeed was in the middle of yelling when Vido added:

"– and as for you Shepard? You'll fetch a nice price I'm sure." Shepard only stared at him coldly - it wasn't the first time she'd heard _those_ words. He waved his hand a second time: "Take them and find the others – no _way_ they came in here alone!"

 _Well. This could be trouble._ Hand to hand Shepard figured she could fairly easily take on three at a time, same as Zaeed (she could even take on more than that, providing she was able to speed the others to their graves fast enough)... but that many – _Ten plus each?_

Vido grinned at Zaeed, then casually turned his back – prompting Zaeed to leap after him in a fit of rage and with that... the whole thing started to unravel. Funny how thoughts without words will find them later in the explaining – it was a wordless panic that struck Shepard in that instant: she could see just how it might all end... Right here, right now... Until she heard a cheerful sultry voice through her earpiece say:

" _Smoke 'em if you got 'em!"_

Flashing an arrogant smile as she quickly she shielded her eyes, that turned to a teeth-gritting flinch as flash-bangs and smoke grenades rained down on all of them. She had no idea if Zaeed had picked up the same cue as she had or had shielded his eyes in time, but she hoped- _No, it's OK he got it: there he is._ She spotted where he'd gone: diving for cover _through_ a bunch of mercs, he was now on the ground shooting up at them with assault rifle in one hand, pistol in the other, sliding on his back across the floor tiles towards an assembly line workbench.

A heartbeat later Shepard was swinging her fists and feet into action, the sound of gunfire overhead reassured her that Garrus was still in position and taking shots. She could hear Zaeed yelling a steady stream of obscenities –

"GERROUDDA MY WAY YOU STINKIN' SHITBAG!"

\- And so forth, so she knew _he_ was still alive. She, meanwhile, dodged grabby hands... A _nd_ the fist coming at her from the other side that she'd _just_ caught in her peripheral vision in time... All while ducking a gun butt levelled at her head-on. She kicked whoever that gun belonged to, hard enough for them to go piling into another three mercs with a clatter of armour hitting the deck.

There was a louder thump behind her and Shepard wheeled around to note a body had just fallen to the floor, landing on someone else in the process – _So Kasumi's still at work, then._ Another split second later and she realised the close call it had been: having herself to then dive for cover to get away (from the doubled-up amount of body-bits-turned-projectiles that subsequently flew her way) when the sundered _pyro's_ back-mounted fuel canister exploded. Shepard's reckoning of Kasumi's skill went up a notch: she must've knocked the sniper off the gantry then shot past him to pierce the tank of the pyro below. _Impressive._

Unfortunately it was no time to be admiring Kasumi's graceful efficiency: for in that explosion-stunned moment, someone grabbed a hold of Shepard. Four arms tried to restrain her, but with her cybernetically enhanced strength they didn't have the power to hold her for long enough to restrain her. One attacker got a broken leg from her foot which she rammed backwards with all the strength she had, straight into the guy's kneecap. The other got a broken nose from her helmet as she jumped up and rammed her head backwards into it... Then as her elbow followed that, a cracked visor... then as her gun butt followed that... a cracked skull... Rhythmically punctuated with a _whack-crack-thunk._

Pushing off the floor she slammed her shoulder into another assailant, bowling them over as she spotted another body fall with a thunk ahead of her, landing on top of someone who _had_ been running towards her. _That's another drink I owe you -_ Kasumi seemed to be getting pretty good at that, but it wasn't enough: soon the inevitable piled itself upon her. It was impossible to watch all sides and Shepard stumbled as she took that blow to the head, fuzzily falling forwards... into flames. She yelled – vision blocked and shields taking a beating enough for her to curse at the pain of the sudden heat – but she heard the sniper shot that saved her. She'd just managed to dive sideways to the floor, when _that_ trooper's fuel tank exploded.

 _N_ _eed... to find... cover!_ Rifle still in hand, she let off a hail of bullets upwards at the next wave of blue armour to come klunking towards her as they rushed to make up the distance between them and her. _Where the hell's Zaeed?!_ _Ah crap... –_ Her gun beeped for reload, but she hadn't the time. Suddenly there was a weight on top of her and she sprawled as someone tried to wrestle her into submission on the ground. Instinctively she dropped her gun, having to use both her hands to pry the choke hold from her throat and yank away the arm responsible from around her neck. Rolling then, she grabbed her rifle and used the butt of it to bludgeon her attacker into unconsciousness. Rising to her feet, she took on another in the same fashion, still no time to reload.

 _A nice long blade... What I wouldn't give for a nice long sword right now..._

She was getting a lot of use out of this gun butt: another trooper fell crumpled and comatose to the ground. _Well at least they still want me alive..._ which in the chaos meant no shooting. A breath later and the battle looked set to continue: another five mercs were coming towards her. At least these ones had a little more sense: she could only assume that all of them paused for thought at the pile of bodies lying around her. They hesitated. She dropped her still-not-reloaded weapon and drew out a combat knife in favour of speed, nevertheless hoping that maybe, just _maybe_ , she could intimidate them into quitting the field:

"You wanna dance? _Let's dance!"_ \- words spoken through barred teeth.

She goaded them confidently, motioning with her hand for them to come on, yet they remained motionless – observing her only – until suddenly she realised that _wasn't_ what they were pausing for...

 _Whyyyyyysssssssssss!_

 _\- Oh crap._

She was instinctively diving for the floor again, just as a frantic Turian (who hadn't got off that all important shot in time) panicked and yelled down her earpiece:

"Shepard get DOWN!"

 _So much for being 'taken alive' then..._ The rocket hit some piece or other of machinery ahead of her and a wave of molten metal flowed down across the decking and took out another five or six men further away – screaming. Whoever fired that shot was probably kicking themselves right now if it _was_ one of Vido's lot (heaven forbid Zaeed had got a hold of one their rocket launchers). Thankfully the glowing-hot flow didn't hit anywhere near the heart of the fighting where Shepard was but it was a welcome distraction as she grabbed her gun and _ran_.

Kasumi asked rhetorically: _"Crazy idiots are firing_ _rockets_ _– in_ _here_ _?!"_ as Shepard scrambled for cover under a new hail of bullet fire from yet another direction: _reinforcements_. She leapt over a workbench and caught a breath before barking into her own helmet as she (finally) reloaded her rifle:

"Kasumi where's Vido?! Don't let him get away! Garrus–" – She was about to ask if he had a bead on Vido when she suddenly found herself on the _wrong side_ of that workbench... Five ready lights showed from the other side of a different assembly line, one at an angle to the one she hid behind - vantage on her position.

"-Shit."

She was truly beginning to wonder how in Arashu's name she might survive this one when all five of those ready lights started doing the 'bumblebee dance' in a bubble of biotic-blue light, accompanied by the music-to-her-ears sound of much, _much_ screaming. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, She opened fire at the glowing biotic cloud.

" _Hey! Watch your fire!"_ Came a familiar voice through her headset _and_ audibly from over the other side of that assembly line.

"Jacob?!" Shepard yelled. "Am _I_ glad to see  you!"

"Thought you could use a hand." He dived into cover beside her. "Been listening to your comms for a while and headed in when it sounded like things were getting messy."

"Good timing." She reloaded again and peaked over the assembly bench, ducking just in time as shots rained horizontally across at her from three different directions.

"Want me to hit 'em with the good stuff?" Jacob smirked, pistol in hand as he crouched down beside her.

Shepard raised her eyebrows and smirked back with a tilt of her head and a nod in their direction: "Be my guest!"

"Putting up a barrier!" He yelled, diving then over the workbench into the midst of it all, Shepard providing covering fire and picking off the many who turned to fire at the blue-glowing, Jacob-shaped distraction.

"Garrus, you got a bead on Vido?!" Shepard asked impatiently as she shot down a few more.

"No, but I think I saw him go off towards the smelting area. Shepard I think Zaeed's spotted him – he's moving."

"Find a better position! Don't lose him!" She barked, and the pause before the telltale click of Garrus' mic turning off told her precisely the silent question he had on his mind: _Do you mean Vido, or Zaeed..?_

She left Kasumi aloft and Jacob behind, instructing them to run clean-up, then raced towards the back of the foundry herself. The one thing she did _not_ want happening was Zaeed facing Vido alone. If at all possible, she was going to try to kill Vido herself – she had a feeling that like Solem, Vido  would leave them little choice. She just... didn't want Zaeed to do it, same way she didn't want Garrus to be the one to kill Dr. Saleon either, and why she still grappled mentally with herself having ended Solem Dal'Serah.

 _You can't control how people will act, but you can control how you_ _re_ _act – and that's what matters. How and why you do a thing determines who you are, it can change you and set you off on a new path even if the end result is the same..._ – Her mother's wisdom, only now was she realising it had been her words all along that had guided her out of trauma and into the woman that she had become.

As Shepard raced to catch up with Zaeed, her mind wandered. It occurred to her that after slavers came to Mindoir, she'd stopped herself from recalling a lot of memories of her mother – of anything really from before that time. She'd really only begun to recall them more consciously lately.

Partly it was her being more friendly with the crew – she'd rarely had the luxury of long-lasting acquaintances past which there was more to talk about besides your latest near-death experience in battle, or mission briefings, or the consistency of ration contents... Let alone opportunity for long-standing friendships after losing Hiro. Partly this surge of memory was due to Zaeed and their getting to know one another, which when you want something like that to go right, starts with being forthright and introspective honesty.

She'd always acknowledged the lessons she'd learned as a child, yet... Yet she never really knew to what depth her mother had retained such a strong influence: the things she'd used to say had crept into who Shepard was, and stuck there. Shepard wasn't just Shepard: she was the sum of all the wisdom she'd ever heard... and after all these years, the biggest parts of that still came from her mother, and through her: her grandmother. She was beginning to her mother's voice instead of her own at times, whenever her thoughts drifted towards some insight she might use.

It hurt: the idea that she hadn't reasoned the wisdom she possessed on her own alone. It made her doubt herself and her own self-worth. At the same time it was incredibly comforting... and she felt more than a little guilty for not having given credit where credit was due. Then again, maybe she'd reached an age where her own voice actually sounded familiar, like her mother's would have sounded when she was the same age. _Same age. When my mother was my age, she'd found someone she wanted to marry, done that and decided she wanted children, and started doing that already too. How different my life has turned out..._

Her mind was wont to drift until a noise grabbed her attention. She rounded the corner to what it was she had just moments ago, set off to track down. Skirting around the smelter with molten metal bubbling away above, she saw Vido on his knees and Zaeed with a gun to his head.

 _Damn it – No..!_

* * *

REFERENCES:

I always loved that line delivered by Lando Calrissian in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes back when he's talking to Chewbacca about Han Solo - "You still hangin' 'round with this loser?" - so I paraphrased it for Vido asking Shepard if she still had Zaeed on her payroll.

The title of the chapter is totally stolen from the DLC that Zaeed as a character comes with, also the name of the mission you have take him on to secure his loyalty. It's also a poetic title for the characters featured. At the start of the story there's Thane and Samara. Thane paid a heavy price for abandoning his son to take revenge upon his wife's killers: ultimately he nearly lost his son to the criminal underworld. Samara was honour-bound in quiet horror to avenge the people her daughter tortured and killed. Samara says she killed the 'bravest and smartest' of her daughters, and only The Code remained to keep her sane from that awful task afterwards. Now there's Zaeed's quest for revenge: and that revenge is finally at hand. But revenge has a funny way of not turning out quite to be what you expect...


	17. Chapter 17 - Revenge

~ Finding The Heart ~

...Revenge

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. **Foul language** , adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

"Zaeed!" She yelled, then into her earpiece: "Garrus _move!"_ – and all-out sprinted."Zaeed – wait!"

Coming to a sudden halt she saw Vido: Zaeed with a fistful of his hair, both with bloodied noses and Vido with what could only be a broken arm and a broken leg from the way they were bent. Her stomach did a little _'urk'_ at the sight of them.

"This goddamned bastard _needs_ to **DIE** , Shepard!" Zaeed yelled out, "You don't know what he did!" - not quite the calm, ruthless picture of cold vengeance she had expected him to be. She turned her head to one side with the suspicious sense that there was something important going on here that she did not yet know... Something that had just been brought to light.

"Zaeed... Please! I know he's –"

"The _hell_ you do – YOU  DON'T KNOW!" He yelled at _her_ then, and turned the gun to point at _her_. That got her attention, real fast. _Something's wrong. Something's changed..._

"Alright... Alright..." She holstered her weapon carefully and slowly raised her hands with measured submission. "Howabout you explain it to me." Her heart was pounding. She tried to speak calmly: "What don't I know?" ...All the while her brain panicked at what in Hell's name could've unhinged him this much, that fast, that she _didn't_ already know about. She thought she'd seen his worst in the cargo bay. Clearly she was wrong.

"Tell her. **TELL** HER, YOU GODDAMN **SON OF A BITCH!** " He yelled at Vido and put the gun to his head again, but he never gave Vido chance to answer anyway. Instead he yelled: "HE was the one who burned down her apartment! Not the Demon Maws! It was _HIM!"_ Shepard's eyes widened. _'Her' – as in Alice? Alice's apartment..? Oh god..._ The full implications dawned on her. _Goddess if what he told Zaeed the Demon Maws did to her was actually him..._

"Me, a few of the boys. Had a good time." Vido choked and Shepard honestly thought Zaeed would kill him right there and then, but for the fact that there was apparently one more question he wanted to ask:

"WHY?" Through gritted teeth, Zaeed let go of Vido's hair and paced away, only to come back, grab after the man's face as he yanked his head back and yelled all the louder at him: " **WHY?!** WHY'D Y'DO IT, VIDO?!"

Shepard felt physically sick - from learning the depth of Vido's depravity, or seeing what Zaeed was capable of when provoked? Hard to say. Vido laughed and answered with a bloodied and swollen grin:

"Why?" He gargled a laugh: "For the look on your face, of course."

Zaeed smacked Vido across the head with the barrel of the gun. Shaking the fuzziness of the impact from his head, Vido spat out a tooth. He coughed up some blood but still had just enough teeth to smirk. His voice was wet and hoarse:

"You were getting _distracted_. I needed you focused... on business." He winced as he fought the pain to continue: "Alice was in the way. The Demon Maws were in the way. Two birds, one _gullible_ rock."

Zaeed's face contorted, tears streamed down his face but he was mad, so very _mad_. Shaking mad. Even Shepard was numbed with the shock of it all – that this man had been Zaeed's 'best' friend. _Lies within lies._ To have orchestrated _all_ of it, right from the start – the fire, hiding Alice's survival, lying to Vladimir about Zaeed and basically holding that entire family captive for all those years even _after_ he'd cut ties with Zaeed... She thought Zaeed knew how to hold a grudge, but Vido took it to a whole new level.

Was it spite? Fear maybe that when Zaeed found out, he'd redouble his efforts to find Vido and be more likely to actually succeed in killing him? She'd seen some terrible things that people had done to each other over the years, but as far as Shepard was concerned: Vido was right up there with Dr. Saleon and the Cerberus doctors who experimented on alliance soldiers injecting them with Thresher Maw acid.

It was almost too much to bear hearing let alone seeing: this truth shredding Zaeed to pieces, his whole life likely unravelling before his eyes for the depths of Vido's deceit and betrayal. _And I thought_ _Solem_ _Dal'Serah_ _was a monster..._ Zaeed raised his hands, gun and all, and began striking his own skull on both sides as Vido continued:

"You really poured yourself into our enterprise," Vido coughed and smiled, "after that. Even I was surprised how smoothly we took out the Demon Maws, and I really quite _admired..."_ – another cough – "...how ruthless you became."

Zaeed was clutching both hands to his head now, pressing them against his temples as he turned and stalked off, grimacing, doubtless replaying Vido's every word, over and over again. _Poison_. It was like watching him be tortured, and Shepard was presently musing upon the idea of putting a bullet in Vido's head herself  right now, just to shut him up. _Maybe some truths are actually better off not being heard – I can't watch him do this to Zaeed! Whether he dies or not, the bastard's won! Zaeed's broken... He's-_

She looked at Vido, ready to raise her own rifle and end it, but then she _saw_ something...

...Something so bizarre it had her frozen to the spot. Vido... was _watching_ Zaeed's every move, but there was no glee in seeing the results of the things he had said. That was more than a little odd. Everything Shepard knew about Vido told her it wasn't enough for him just to manipulate Zaeed: his ego would surely demand the last laugh, and the last laugh he _should_ have had... But it wasn't there: not in that split second whilst Zaeed's back was turned. It was strangely absent: no satisfaction, no sense of victory, no defiance... _Instead..._ there was...

 _Misery._

...Then gone: the _moment_ Zaeed turned enough to have been able to see Vido's face. The change was so fast it was practically reflex. _What the hell is going on..?_ Shepard's subconscious quickly began pulling words from her memory:

" _Vido is the one exception to your species I've found..."_

"... _He knew his place was at my side."_

" _Vido is under_ _my_ _protection."_

\- Solem Dal'Serah's words.

" _I just used him."_

\- Vido's response to Solem's death.

" _Horde of bloodthirsty bastards ready to kill or be killed on my command..."_

\- Indoctrination isn't the only way to inspire that kind of fanaticism...

\- _Have I ever met a Blue Sun merc that wasn't male..?_

\- Solem screaming Vido's name as he fell upwards...

Shepard frowned; the pieces coming together. Before she even knew the words that sprang from her voice in conclusion, they had already tumbled out of her mouth:

"You're _lying_..."

Zaeed, who was in the process of putting the barrel of his pistol to Vido's forehead again, stopped to glare at her with narrowed, reddened eyes.

"...What?" His frown was as severe as if she would be next on his to-do list.

Shepard didn't look at him at all though, only at Vido... who now was focused on _her_ with all the viciousness he could muster. It didn't matter. She could see through it now, and she spoke calmly and softly to him, with great sympathy and pity:

" _You_ didn't do those things. You maybe ordered them, but you didn't do them. Because _you..._ were _jealous..._ of Alice."

"Shut up! Shut your fucking whore-hole!" Vido spat obscenities in venomous panic... and instantly betrayed himself. Earnestly now he stared at her, terror in his eyes. Shepard blinked as that moment of clarity washed over her sense of reality. Slowly she opened her eyes and with pity, patience and sorrow she broke the shell of lies that Vido had spent a lifetime building:

"You... were... in love with him... weren't you?"

Her words had cut deeper than anything Zaeed could _ever_ have said or done to Vido before now, and he visibly recoiled. Where previously he had stared Zaeed straight in the face with infuriating detachment and cruel superiority, he now wore a look of utter shame and would not even look at him at all.

Zaeed... just stood there blinking and thinking... Looking first at Shepard, then at Vido, which was where the truth was now plain to see. Zaeed's mouth now agape, his expression changed from raging insanity to simple bewilderment. For the longest time, things stayed that way. Zaeed's posture relaxed. He lowered his gun, evidently doing a lot of emotional math for himself. Eventually tears welled up in his eyes, and his face grew older as if by ten years. He breathed steady deep breaths, and his entire body shook from head to foot despite the heat.

"Since when..?" He asked, quietly at first. Then louder: "How long? Goddamn it, answer me!"

Vido didn't answer, unable even to look at him. Zaeed scoffed and laughed out loud into darkness above as tears spilled from his eyes as fast as he tried to wipe them away. Shepard's heart slowed to a less frantic pace as in the silence of Vido's reply, she gave the obvious answer to that question:

"From the first time he met you, I'd guess." She paused for breath. "He _couldn't_ tell you. He didn't think you'd ever feel the same way..."

There was no sound but the crackling of hot metal and the roar of the furnace flames. Vido, although surely in agony from his injuries, seemed apparently numbed into silence. Zaeed likewise. Despite all that he had done and was responsible for, Shepard could not help but find herself feeling sorry for both Zaeed _and_ now Vido too – vessels of men empty but for their malice and their pain, mirror image of one another. She saw the pattern now, in everything Vido had ever done.

"It must have been so painful, watching Zaeed with all those women." Vido's eyes, wide and unblinking, still staring elsewhere, began to water. "You must have worked so hard to foster your interdependence on one another, to make Zaeed _need_ you. Your friendship blossomed with that but every step closer together also pushed him further out of your reach, didn't it? Fame and wealth just brought more opportunities for Zaeed to  prove his unavailability, didn't it?"

Vido stared at the floor as he found himself forced to relive all his very worst memories. Whatever pain he was in from his body, it was insignificant to the pain he wore on his face now, in recollection of his past.

"Then along came Alice. _That_ must have been your breaking point. None of the women before her had ever meant a thing to Zaeed, and my guess is you must have found some comfort in that. But when Zaeed found someone he actually _cared_ about, when he started to figure out that that's how he felt about her, _that's_ when you realised you might _really_ loose him."

Vido gasped and his face contorted, spilling tears and blood dripped from his mouth as he cried out the most mournful sound Shepard had ever heard – a crippling howl that faded into nothingness, breath exhausted. It was worse even than when Tali found her father. His body juddered with silent tears after that, as he gasped for air. Zaeed's eyes widened and he looked down in utter disbelief... until the bitterness returned to Vido's expression and he smoothed away that raw emotion as if it had never shown. After a few breaths he coldly looked up at Zaeed and snarled:

"If _I_ couldn't have you... Why should _she."_ – It wasn't phrased as a question.

It was too much. Zaeed clutched his hand to his face and turned away as he clawed at his own eyes with his fingers. Shepard filled in the gaps that remained:

"I have to admire your skill Vido – you are a master manipulator." And at this point she could not help but scorn him: "I'm guessing you were always good at getting what you wanted from people but, more than most people tend to, _you_ saw fit to exploit your talent – and you knew could pull it off. You saw an opportunity didn't you? Corrupt and break Zaeed's chance for love, make his heart as barren as yours had become, and then you could wallow in your loneliness... together."

Vido said nothing. Shepard looked at Zaeed: "But even then, that wasn't enough. He must have grown to resent you Zaeed, to hate you so much that in the end he tried to kill you as a means to end his own misery, to cut out his own heart and save himself from the living burden of his pain."

Vido had lashed out at everyone and everything around him including, in the end, the one person in the galaxy he might actually have initially _wanted_ to care about, whose love and trust he would have _wanted_ to earn. Every wretched misery Vido had inflicted upon Zaeed, upon Alice and her family who he had harassed even after her death... Even his wider disregard for the welfare of the rest of the galaxy and abuse of the power of influence he grew to have over it... _Every_ act of cruelty Vido had ever committed may have been, in truth, all for  this... To exorcise the pain he himself lived with every day, because he couldn't move on, because he couldn't even acknowledge what it was he needed to move on _from_... Until it was too late.

 _Spite... levelled at a galaxy that had given him love unrequited._

Rage returned to Zaeed as he stormed back again to glare down at Vido, yelling: "Why didn't you bloody well tell me?!" Vido turned his head away. Zaeed stared up at the ceiling, "God... damn..." – His voice near breaking as he laughed with no small a touch of insanity.

He asked with disbelief: "All this... everything you ever did to me, to _her,_ to that no good coward Vladimir and to that little kid who had fuck-all to do with _any_ of this," He raised his arms wide, "You did all because you had a fucking goddamn ' _crush'_ on  me?!" He laughed again, but it was the kind of laughter you expect from people who've actually gone completely bat-shit crazy _over_ the edge. It wasn't happy.

 _Which means... he's about to swing into something violent-_

\- And he did.

"Fucking- **LOOK** AT ME!" Zaeed commanded through gritted teeth, and grabbed Vido's face, squeezing it hard enough to make Vido wince and grizzle in pain. Shepard took a step closer as Zaeed yanked Vido's jaw upwards, forcing him to face upwards, while Zaeed stared down at Vido from mere inches away. Vido, for once, actually looked  terrified.

"What you did – you call THAT... love?!" Zaeed let go and sobered his face. He turned his back on Vido and Shepard _winced_ when he added, viciously over his shoulder:

"You fucking _disgust_ me."

She flinched again then, when she saw Vido break. _Those_ were the words, then, that Vido had most feared to hear... That fear had driven him to do  everything he had done. Zaeed... now used them like a weapon, like he turned a knife in the wound. That was ultimately what it _looked_ like, and it _looked_ like one of the _ugliest_ things Shepard had ever witnessed anybody do.

Zaeed slowly turned to face Vido again, "You knew..." – an unpleasant snarl on his face, and a coldness to his words – "You were like a _**brother**_ to me. We were _more_ than friends. We were  blood. I _trusted_ you. And  this... THIS is how you repay me."

Shepard feared in this moment that Zaeed's darker side would swallow him whole. She could see all the time they'd spent together and before that, every bit of influence Alice had ever had to make him a better person – all of it – just washing away... Except that Zaeed's expression changed then to one of terrible loss and sorrow:

"I never kept a single goddamned secret from you, Vido." He shook his head remorsefully. "You knew... _everything..._ about me. Every dirty little goddamned detail of my life I had from the day we met until you tried to _kill_ me." His eyes watered as he raised his head again to the darkness lofting above them, with a hackling laugh:

"You think I'd have walked away because you're bloody _gay?!_ You havin' a fuckin' giraffe?!" Zaeed gave an incredulous smile before he clawed at his eyes down his cheeks to his chin with an exasperated shout as he turned circles-

"AwwwwrggGGGHHH!"

-And planted his feet apart as he fired twice at the ceiling (a ceiling tile or two, crashing to the floor nearby shortly after). He gusted out an exasperated sigh, dropping his head as he put his hands on his hips, pistol still in one hand:

"DAMN IT _**VIDO!"**_ Another shake of his head and another exasperated sigh later: "You _really_ thought  I'd turn against you?! f'Christ's sake what goddamned era d'y'think we're livin' in?! Your parents went and filled that twisted fucking head of yours with all kinds of goddamn prejudiced shit, didn't they?! Arse-backwards retarded in-bred fucking twat-faced _wankers..!_ Jesus, Mohammed and a damned _Bloody Mary..!"_ He paused for breath and his face sobered: "In _all_ that time we spent together, I thought you would've at least learned to believe in  me – Vido – to bloody well trust in _me_." Then with a pained frown on his face and sorrow in his frustration:

"But you couldn't even tell me this?!"

Vido was frowning now, looking up at Zaeed confused and choking on his own congealing blood - this was clearly _not_ the reaction he had expected... His mouth parted as if he were going to try to say something, but then Zaeed's demeanour changed, and Vido clamped his mouth _shut_. Zaeed had pulled himself up to his full height, defaulting at last to the vengeful ice-cool attitude Shepard had originally expected to find, when first she'd walked in on him holding a gun to Vido's head...

"Truth is... Now you'll never know _how_ that might've turned out." – Softly, but cold – _so cold..._ "You never even gave me a chance to _think_ about it, did you? You just answered the fucking question _for_ me, like you _always_ do." Then with a silken sharpness: "I _can_ tell you  this, Vido -" Then snarled through gritted teeth; "- _Old friend:_ the malicious, cold-hearted, cowardly _**son of a bitch**_ you've proven yourself to be, is sure as hell one I could – _NEVER_ _–_ have _loved!"  
_

Zaeed's body practically shook with the resolve he had for those last words. Vido's face meanwhile transitioned from shock to abject horror. A lifetime's assumptions may have been wrong, and a lifetime of manipulation may have been worse than fruitless: it may actually have destroyed the one thing in the galaxy he maybe _could_ have had, that he'd ever... actually... _wanted_. Shepard could almost see him mouth the words:

 _What have I done? What... have I become?_

He drew regret from the truth of a thousand lies and it dawned on him then: Zaeed was _not_ going to give him any second chances. Vido closed his eyes–

 _Let mercy come. I want to die by your hand, if anyone's..._

–as Zaeed lifted his pistol and pressed the barrel to Vido's forehead-

"NO!"

Shepard yelled, darting forward to catch Zaeed's arm and tug it aside. He looked at her, nothing but soul-breaking misery in his eyes. She couldn't let him do it. _Couldn't._ She yanked off her own helmet and threw it to the floor as she begged with _all_ her soul:

"Don't! Don't _do_ it Zaeed! Don't let him be the cause of even one more death! Not even his own! You are  better than this!"

Zaeed looked at her, his lips quivered and tears fell down his already tear-streaked cheeks. She let go his arm and grabbed his face with both her gloved hands. She wiped those tears away, and yanked his head to hers and closed her eyes:

"Please..!"

She pleaded with him, tears of her own threatening to fall. _Be_ _a man that I can_ _love_ _and be_ _proud_ _of... I want to believe I can help you through this–_

 _\- BANG._

Zaeed blinked. Shepard half-turned, hearing as much as seeing Vido slump to the floor. Turning back to look at Zaeed she was horrified...

 _Oh my god he just..._

\- Until her mind recognised the sound for what it had been: a sniper shot, _not_ a pistol shot.

 _What the hell?_

She hugged against Zaeed – automatic instinct set to take him to the nearest cover, thinking perhaps the shot was a mistake and really _they_ were the target. In that split second the shock on his face made her worry _he'd_ been shot - that it had gone through him first... But the tension in his muscles as he resisted told her that wasn't the case.

 _But if he's fine and I'm..._ [quick mental check] _fine... And it wasn't him who fired, then...  
_

She turned around, scanning her surroundings as Zaeed relaxed his arm. She spied then where the bullet had come from, as a silver and blue Turian shape rose to its feet against the darkness on the gantry above them. Garrus rested his rifle to carry, staring down at the two of them for a moment, then turned around... and walked away.

* * *

REFERENCES/EXPLANATION:

"Regret drawn from the truth from a thousand lies" is a nod to the lyrics of a Linkin Park song called 'What I've Done' which for better or ill, I heard on the soundtrack of one of the newer Transformer films (2007). Actually there are several songs by that band that work for either Vido or Zaeed in my head (I'm a fan the albums Hybrid Theory, Reanimated and Meteora in particular).

The title of this chapter completes the title of the last, totally stolen from the DLC that Zaeed as a character comes with; also the name of the mission you have take him on to secure his loyalty. The two chapters together pose a question as title, and part-answer in content. _What price, revenge?_

What I always find poignant is that one way or another, revenge often begets revenge in a vicious cycle... And so I propose for you in this chapter: this is how the deadly dance of Vido and Zaeed _began_.

I hope readers realise that this chapter is a tale of tragedy... Not about the dangers of being something other people say is 'wrong'. No. Rather this is a cautionary tale about the _dangers_ of making others feel that their existence is invalidated by some core trait they cannot change about themselves, as Vido's family evidently did to him. Look at what he became as a result.

Lastly, to compound the tragedy and tie it all together: Zaeed thought he was taking revenge against Vido, but Vido thought he was taking revenge against Zaeed. Nothing burns and turns friends against one another quite like unrequited love. It is the source of many a betrayal and dreadful act in real life!

I also wanted to break a few norms with my story. When was the last time you saw a macho manly-man [ _gay]_ villain? You've probably seen them about as often as you've seen a female villain who was _neither_ gay nor sultry and sexually manipulative, but rather just a brute force bully. Don't see them often either, do you? Why is that?

I believe that how we portray villains is at least as important as how we play heroes and since (for personal interest) I'd picked a heterosexual coupling for my protagonists, I thought I'd offer up a villain worthy of galactic repute - a ruthless, physically dominant, wilful and unrelenting foe whose imposing nature and battle competence is matched only by his intelligence and capacity for manipulation. A _truely terrible villain_... Yet one who just so happens to be gay.

Why? Because it is _wrong_ to pigeonhole people! Just because a man is gay, doesn't mean he  has to be feminine. Doesn't mean he can't be the biggest badass in the galaxy. Doesn't mean he can't be everything we've ever seen a straight man be in books and games and on TV.

When you combine sexism with homophobia (which stem from the same false assumptions of gender inequality), you get the sexist straight male's worst phobia that a man who is gay will see, approach and treat him the same way as he would a woman. So the last thing such a man ever wants to see... is a powerful, frightening, domineering man - an adversary - who is gay.

* * *

PS I have been really, _really_ nervous about posting this chapter, because the last thing I'd ever want to do, is to make someone who's gay feel like I'm villainising their sexuality. If you feel that way, I will take this chapter  down and ask humbly for advice on how to make it work better.


	18. Chapter 18 - Dualities Of Need

~ Finding The Heart ~

Dualities Of Need

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

The Normandy swooped down for pick-up and Jacob brought the hammerhead smoothly into the landing bay, matching the Normandy's velocity and angle for a perfect entry, allowing for a swift exit from K02. Shepard clenched her hand into a fist and relaxed it again.

 _When Vido's mercs on K03 figure out that Vido is dead, who knows what they'll do.._. _Got to get a handle on what's going on down there..._

Joker had informed her that the bomb Kasumi had warned them about _was_ real, and was certainly big enough to be of concern, with a minimum two thousand civilians/small-time crooks, families, children... all on the brink of being turned into plasma-ash.

The civilians might need evacuation offworld. Miranda, Tali, Jack and Legion might need back-up, or rescuing... All of which when translated meant: the Normandy had no time to stop.

 _Shepard..._ had no time to stop.

No time to stop and try to pick up the pieces of the broken man sat opposite her, silently cradling his eyes in his palms... No matter how urgently she felt that was needed. No matter how her stomach felt about it. No matter the pallor of his face or the turmoil she could only imagine that lay within.

No time to corner her closest friend – the only one she'd ever had in her entire life who'd actually stood by her without fail... The one who presently sat in the furthest corner from her, avoiding all her looks as he slouched, sniper rifle between his knees, one leg outstretched. No time to ask him what the hell he thought he'd been playing at when he took Vido out with a shot right through his skull, _just_ as she'd been calming things down. No time to think about Solem Dal'Serah _either_... Like how _despite_ having that painful 'loose end' to her life tied up with all but a bow on it for its neatness, _'happy'_ was not a word she could use to describe how she felt about the many more questions it had brought clawing to her mind.

She tried not to 'feel' about it. There was no _time_ to feel about it.

Kasumi, Jacob, Zaeed and Garrus each went their separate ways, piling out the moment the Hammerhead settled inside the landing bay. Shepard wanted to follow Zaeed to be sure he'd be alright. She also wanted to follow Garrus to confront him about his insubordination. In the same instant of indecision she had to pause to answer a call from Joker, promising _him_ she'd be heading up to command shortly. Choice-paralysed and distracted by the call, she lost sight of both Garrus and Zaeed as they exited the lift – confusingly on the same level – heading off in opposite directions.

Shepard stood a moment there, body half-in, half-out of the lift and sighed a heavy sigh. She stopped herself from following either, refusing the apparent need to choose, and deciding in the next breath that Garrus could wait and that she'd just have to find other ways to keep tabs on Zaeed – at least until this mission was fully over and done with.

"Time to hit the showers." Jacob said, stepping out on the next deck and with a respectful nod: "Commander."

"Likewise!" Kasumi said having already departed, with a wave of her hand over her shoulder as she walked away.

-Not a word from either of them about what had happened. Departing the lift alone on the Command deck, Shepard spotted Kelly in her usual place and had an idea about how to handle _one_ problem, or at least buy herself some time on it.

"Kelly – I need you to do something."

"Shepard?" – Kelly's face wore that compassionate smile she always had whenever anyone started a conversation with her, but it quickly transformed into concern when she recognised the tone in Shepard's voice and the look on her face.

"Anything wrong?"

"I need you to check in on Zaeed." Kelly's heart visibly sank at that proposal, although she quickly subdued that reaction as Shepard added: "He just found out Vido was the one who burned down his Alice's apartment, to stop him from getting 'distracted' while they were founding the Blue Suns."

"God." Kelly's eyed widened and she pulled her head back in shock and blinked: "That's... well beyond antisocial behaviour disorder..."

Shepard nodded. "It gets worse. Vido and Zaeed were _friends_ for a very long time between then and when Vido tried to have him killed, all the while Zaeed had no idea of Vido's involvement in that incident or the fact that Vido purposefully hid Alice's still being alive from him. Makes me wonder how many other times Vido manipulated Zaeed's life over those years – and before."

"Zaeed's probably wondering the exact same thing."

Kelly nodded, as her lips quickly made a tight line and she put her hands behind her back in professional deference to Shepard's request. She had always been apprehensive about trying to approach Zaeed Massani, on _any_ matter. She had personally disputed The Illusive Man's proposal that he join the crew. He was a destabilising factor: as capable and wilful as Shepard but lacking her direction, making him less predictable, a whole lot more volatile, and a lot less malleable to suggestive correction of his actions.

She shuddered at that last part – _'malleable to suggestive correction'_... The Illusive Man had refused Officer Lawson's suggestion to install a control chip into Shepard's skull. Kelly... had been its replacement.  That... was now a burden of shame almost too great to bear.

Her eyes blurred as she tried to focus on the task that had been appointed to her, to try to do her duty, to think of a way to handle him – for Shepard's sake. She owed Shepard _so much,_ and that shame meant that she would break herself in two if it would help her. She nodded, then realising her eyes had drifted elsewhere, she looked Shepard in the eye and answered as professionally as she could muster.

"Anything else, Commander?" _Heaven knows I've got a lot to make up for... This is the least I can do. Will I ever find the nerve to tell her what I did? How I –_

Shepard sighed and took a step closer: "Look." Shepard placed a hand on her shoulder, and it hurt how quickly their eyes met and Kelly found herself letting that fear and vulnerability show. Shepard's words, softly and calm:

"I know he's made it clear he's not a fan of your role on this ship..."

– That was an understatement if ever there was one. It was portent to a person broken on the inside that they were left able only to express themselves through raw brutality and dark humour. His stories certainly seemed to reflect both. They were coping/survival mechanisms that only someone who has a strong natural inclination towards self-assertion would use – which was what made Zaeed so dangerous.

Zaeed didn't respect anyone who couldn't stand up to him, particularly in the physical sense, which Kelly knew she personally could not. She was more sure of that now than ever, thanks to _The Collectors_. It terrified her that she had been so easily subdued by the hands of an aggressor. They had crushed her combat confidence, and her sense of competence in confrontations continued to spiral downwards. She _understood_ the psychological mechanisms through which that fear now shaped her own behaviour... Unfortunately it's one thing to understand a fear, but quite another to actually put an end to its influence. All she could say was that she was probably doing better at it than most people would, but that she would nonetheless _never_ be the same again.

"...It's alright Commander." She tried to sound brighter.

"You once said you wouldn't want to be _alone_ in a room with him–" – Shepard blinked at that: Kelly was rarely wrong about people. Nevertheless so much of Zaeed was mixed up with what Vido had moulded him into. Shepard believed she was beginning to discern that he was in fact an honourable man with a kind soul, albeit only whenever he thought nobody was looking. Still, that sounded particularly stupid when she contemplated speaking that out loud. She tried to say it a different way:

"The impression I get from him personally is that he would threaten any _one_ with any _thing_ if he felt it would get him something he needed, but I doubt that if called, he'd act on every bluff. He doesn't like people to know it but I think he's got a better idea of telling right from wrong than he lets on." She was pretty sure that sex without consent disgusted him. He _needed_ to be _wanted,_ in that regard – or so it seemed - but if she was ever going to talk about _that_ with Kelly, it'd be behind some very tightly closed doors.

"I'll do my professional best, Commander." Kelly, nodded soberly, stubbornly.

Shepard flexed her jaw in agitation at the situation. Silently she was wishing Vido had never been born, and that she didn't have to oblige a tired crew to be cleaning up after the mess he'd made. _And what a mess that is. And I just had to go throw myself in the middle of it didn't I?_ _Am I just a sucker for whoever has the worst hard-luck story..?_

Another sigh: "Doesn't have to be you personally," Shepard blinked again, coming then to the best compromise she could think of: "...but I'm putting you in charge of doing whatever needs doing to keep his head above water and his person in one piece – at least until this mission is over with. Get Dr. Chakwas involved if you need to – _drug_ him if that's what it takes."

She hesitated to add: "Garrus knows _all_ the gory details – there's more I haven't told you. I suggest you arrange to talk to him. Lean on him if you need the muscle – I'm sure he'll be willing to help." _More than willing, maybe -_ Shepard caught the accidental bitterness she'd curtly added to that last sentence and regretted it. Kelly (always the keen observer of behaviour and body language) would surely have noticed.

"Understood Commander." Kelly paused, then carefully asked: "Is there anything else _you'd_ like to talk about Commander?"

Nothing shook her as deeply as seeing _Shepard_ troubled, and while the prospect of her and Garrus having an argument certainly wasn't unforeseeable (they were two of the most stubborn people she'd ever met and neither kept their opinions to themselves), it _would_ be deeply distressing to the both of them, and for the crew. For the crew, it would be more or less like 'having mom and dad fight', for the roles they both played in leadership.

Shepard's eye's flickered in response to Kelly's question, and Kelly suspected there may even be something _else_ bothering her, although whether or not it was related to Zaeed or Garrus she couldn't tell. Whatever it was, it was personal... Something that Shepard wasn't thinking about consciously until that question provoked her to, but it affected her whole demeanour. She was throwing herself into business to avoid it – whatever it was – judging from the sadness that flashed into Shepard's eyes for just a moment when her eyes re-focused on Kelly.

 _I can't..._ – Was what that said.

Indeed: Shepard's mind had flashed through a dozen thoughts and memories in answer to that question. _Solem Dal'Serah. Mindoir. Mom..._ Too much to say. No time to say it in. Meanwhile: work to be done. Shepard clamped her mouth shut, sighed, and spared Kelly a half-smile; thanks for her thoughtfulness.

"...I should go." – Shepard turned on her heels and headed for the cockpit.

* * *

AUTHOR NOTE:

Sorry for the short update. Spouse off work sick. Employer put him on statutory sick pay (low enough you can't actually afford to work) without tell him when they'd do that (we could have used some holiday to lessen the impact, and cut back on a few things if we'd known in advance). We found out this week when we checked our bank account that we'll have to make do with less than half his usual wages. All kinds of other things going on, but I wanted to give you a little tidbit I edited for upload today. If I manage it, another chapter will be edited inside of a week (this is what would have been the start of the next). Anyway, that's why I left you on such a cliff-hanger. I'd actually planned to rocked though the remaining chapters and get them up in very short order! Sorry...


	19. Chapter 19 - The Things That Change Us

~ Finding The Heart ~

The Things That Change Us

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Kelly's lifted her hand to her mouth in anguish and empathy: "Oh my. That's just... Goodness. I think I may be lost for words."

Garrus nodded before adding: "Zaeed mentioned something about Vido's family that makes me think they were _aggressively_ prejudiced towards homosexuality for some reason." He sighed, still awkward about everything that just a short while ago he had been party to.

He frowned:"Look I know Shepard told you to come down here and ask for details, but I really don't feel comfortable talking about this-"

Kelly held up a hand. She waved it slightly and lowered her head, nodding whilst bobbing her head from side to side – body language for Turians when handling a sensitive topic:

"It's quite alright Garrus. The discretion required for my profession is absolute unless a crime has been committed or is about to be committed, and given I worked for Cerberus and who I work for now, you may as well throw both of those conditions out of the window, too. I won't tell a soul except Shepard, and that'll only be if, in my professional assessment of the situation, she _needs_ to know."

Garrus sighed, defeated: "Still feels like I'm invading his privacy. Much as I don't exactly _admire_ Massani... I have to admit that bastard's been through a lot."

"Well... Hopefully this will give me the context I need to be able to foresee any problems he may have _ahead_ of time, and to make sure he's going to be alright in the time being."

Garrus breathed slightly easier."Well... Anyway, that's what happened. That's all I know."

Kelly took a deep breath. Her thoughts shifted back to the events that Garrus had described, who had said what, accounting for biases, and weighed it all up. Her face returned to one of deep concern and worry:

"I wouldn't even know where to begin, to list the trust issues Vido must have had to behave the way he did. His fear of rejection must have been unbearable. That said, there _will_ be other things that explain how he got that way – things that indirectly helped to make him the man that he became..." She pushed off the wall where she'd been casually leaning, and took a seat across from Garrus. Crossing her legs, she propped a finger on her bottom lip as she stared through the bulkhead just to the left of where Garrus was standing.

"Hmm." She tapped her lip as she mused. "Well, for starters I'd bet his family was highly hierarchical... and they were probably brutal in maintaining their pecking order."

"Agreed." Garrus nodded. "His career path would certainly attest to that from what I used to see working for C-Sec. Rare for anyone from a 'good home' to wind up doing what he's done in life. That said, there _are_ exceptions. Some of the most manipulative criminals I've dealt with have been the ones with good families, great educations and the wealth to get away with things. I'd add that Vido must've been pretty smart to run an organisation like the Blue Suns. That and what he did to Zaeed and that family - Vido wasn't just smart, he was _dangerously_ intelligent."

"Mmm." Kelly agreed as Garrus began tapping something into his omnitool, having been struck with the old spark for criminal investigation. "It might be useful to run a background check on Vido and his family."

"Already on it." Garrus chirped in his usual charmingly cocky tone. Kelly smiled; her own intellect ignited with the flurried recall of knowledge she had not had an opportunity to put to use in recent years.

"Statistically speaking," She hypothesised, "I'd bet credits on Vido being the youngest son of a large family, with several older male siblings." Then with a shrug: "That's what the science of genetics and epigenetics suggests when it comes to male human homosexuality."

Garrus stopped what he was doing – "I had no idea you studied genetics as part of psychology." – pulling his head back in surprise.

"Genetics and _Epi_ genetics. In my profession we pay specific attention to the study of both the basic geneset a person can inherit, and the genes that can get turned on or off in the womb. In truth we pay attention to _anything_ that can influence a person's psychological and social traits – personal experiences, brain injuries, a person's genes, and things that can turn genes on and off or influence behaviour before and after birth. We even study pathology!" She smiled gleefully. Garrus looked sceptical, so she continued:

"Some parasites emit hormones that can alter the host's behaviour. Neurological deterioration can be spurred by all kinds of pathogens with various behavioural consequences for the host – take Rabies, for example. Retroviruses can alter genes, turning them on or off or can even re-write them. They're most commonly used for medicinal purposes like correcting genetic diseases as you know, but there are natural ones to watch out for... _and_ unnatural ones that once were designed to be weapons. They crop up from time to time."

Garrus' dumbfounded expression told Kelly she'd waffled and may have gone a little over his head, so she curtly tidied it up and curbed her temporary academic enthusiasm:

"What's relevant in Vido's case is that in humans there are genes that influence sexual attraction to a specific gender. What's interesting is that both genders can have those genes."

Garrus tilted his head inquisitively. Encouraged, Kelly offered an expanded explanation – it was a rare pleasure to divulge knowledge on a topic of personal interest that she could usually only share with Mordin, Miranda, Dr. Chackwas or EDI.

"For example," She smiled cheekily and wiggled on her seat, "...there's a 'male-loving' gene that both male and female humans can possess. If it's present and turned on in a woman then statistically speaking: she's more likely to be heterosexual, and more likely to find a partner and start having children at an earlier age. She will likely have more children than average over the course of her lifetime, too. But if the same gene is present in say, one of her male children or her brother, and if that gene is turned on in them _,_ then there's an increased likelihood that they will 'love men', too." She giggled and gave a brimful smile: "In other words: there's good chance that they will be gay."

Garrus looked quite honestly intrigued, so not wanting to miss the opportunity she continued:

"Prenatal stress and the number of previous male foetuses to have inhabited the mother's womb seem have some influence over the likelihood of whether that gene is turned off or on in male foetuses. So," Her face sobered: "Statistically, it is likely that Vido's mother was stressed during pregnancy when she was carrying him – perhaps she lived in a state of hardship, or faced medical problems or some unfortunate event during pregnancy, or any combination of those things. It's also statistically more likely that she carried other male foetuses prior to Vido's conception, hence why I said he probably came from a large family with several older brothers. All these factors have a compound effect so the more boxes you tick, the more likely sexuality will be determined as gay."

She took a breath and shook her head: _"Obviously_ it's not an unbreakable rule – there are still other factors involved and every person is an individual – but the influence is statistically noticeable." Another shrug: "The running theory is that it's an evolutionary response that allows communities of humans to curtail their population growth whilst creating the equivalent of worker ants who, not having children of their own to support, would have been a real asset to the group, working to help raise children communally and supporting the survival of the whole."

"I'm a bit rusty on the research but I vaguely remember something about both higher logical and emotional intelligences being correlated with homosexuality slightly more than with heterosexuality. If I've remembered that correctly, then that would only add to the benefits a gay individual could bring to group survival: they'd support group social cohesiveness and provide enhanced problem-solving skills in times of hardship - which is exactly when they are more likely to have been born."

"Fascinating..." Garrus' mandibles twitched. "Then I suppose... if Vido's family was large and hierarchical to boot, and if they were abusive and homophobic, then combining that with Vido's born sexuality and associated higher intelligence compared with the rest of his family, Vido would..."

"...Be many times more threatened and insecure - his family just wouldn't have been a 'safe place' for him at all. But he _would_ also have had a better capacity to intelligently hide his sexuality." – Kelly finished his line of thinking for him.

"Hmm." Garrus nodded slowly, then more exaggeratedly in agreement.

Kelly shrugged: "Then along comes Zaeed to be his friend, when in truth Zaeed may have been the _only_ person who wasn't cruel to Vido in Vido's entire life up until that point." Kelly ducked her head in pity. "It's very possible Vido lived in denial that he was gay right up _until_ he met Zaeed. But since his family gave him cause to fear rejection and a violent rebuttal (and who knows what else), he wouldn't have _dared_ tell Zaeed his feelings." She shook her head: "It would have been hard enough for him to tell Zaeed that he was gay. Could you imagine then having to find the courage to tell _Zaeed_ that  he was the guy who'd made you realise it: that you were gay?"

Garrus shook his head – it made a sorry lot of sense, although he didn't much appreciate the way Kelly had (with that last part) had him putting himself in the shoes of contemplating physical attraction to _that_ particular scoundrel. Garrus would _never_ understand what Shepard saw in Zaeed, even _if_ he were gay. Similarly, now he knew the things that Vido had done – to Zaeed, to that family, hell he'd even tried to sell Shepard's corpse – Garrus could forgive Vido for nothing.

 _Extenuating circumstances allowing, you're still responsible for the decisions_ _you_ _make, and Vido deserved to_ _die_ _for his._

Just then, Garrus' omnitool pinged with subtle vibration up his forearm:

"Hmm..." Garrus scrolled through the downloaded files: "While we've been talking I've had EDI run some checks on Vido's history. Looks like he was unusually short for his age, due to a hormonal imbalance. That got fixed through some state-sponsored programme for providing free medical care to children from underprivileged backgrounds... Even so there are several records of him starting fights and being a bully _long_ before 's also several reports to various authorities from neighbours and school staff citing concerns for child and domestic abuse in Vido's family." Garrus paused and looked at Kelly: "With family like _that_ , who needs enemies?" Garrus shrugged and ducked his head to raise his eyes to Kelly in an intimidating manner – the Turian equivalent of eye-rolling.

"Indeed." Kelly raised her eyebrows and nodded.

Garrus scrolled up and down, scanning for other details. "Looks like he _did_ have several brothers, and they were well known aggressors in the local community... Bullies in school... The older ones tended to pick on the younger ones as a rule by the looks of things – except Vido, who seemed known to 'punch above his weight' as you humans say. Later, Vido's older brothers had some involvement with a gang - called themselves the ' _Demon Maws'_. Looks like your suspicions were spot on."

Kelly frowned: "Wait... isn't that the same gang that..?"

Garrus looked up from his omnitool then sighed as he made the same connection for himself. Facepalming:

"Oh, fan _tastic_...And I was _just_ thinking this story couldn't get any worse..."

* * *

 _Blue biotic force funnelled down the corridor,_

 _Blue Suns sailing at speed_

 _A detonation - the Ice Queen's warped victims..._

"You're going to tear a hole in the habitat you crazy bitch!" - Cheerleader with her pretentious-perfect yelling interrupts the muse. _[Sigh]_ Well... It didn't work right anyway... Needs rewording. Still - always a pleasant sound: hearing her lose her temper.

Jack grinned. "Not like this moon's zero atmosphere – we''ll live!"

Time to reload. Fucking assault team was still trying to get in. Shit exploding and punching holes through wall panels all over the fucking place. _Fun times –_ almost as crazy as when Shepard's around in person. Scratch that. Nothing's that crazy. Jack poked her head around the doorframe and fired at anyone still moving.

"BRING IT ON!" She yelled.

 _Figures._ Here she was, stuck with Cheerleader and _the robot_ guarding the door to the facilities' control room, going nowhere until Shepard finally got her ass moon-side. They were supposed to be protecting this [huge fuck-off bomb] while Legion did stuff [whatever the fuck it was Legion did] to it behind a desk over to their right behind them. Fun fireworks to look forward to if that bomb gets hit with its core exposed – pretty fucking _likely_ if Shepard didn't- _Hurry. The fuck._ _Up_ _._

* * *

...Legion is approximately 76% task complete on sorting bomb components. Potentially useful components have been identified as present in desks, walls, floors, communications and monitoring equipment. There is an 86% likelihood of being able to house the bomb's remains in a carry-capable unit that would be resilient, fireproof, armoured against impact, and voice activated as operative Lawson has requested...

* * *

Fuckers just keep coming. Jack yelled back at The Ice Queen:

"Besides it was _your_ stupid idea to bluff." Stupid fucking plan. Trust Queeny to come up with something superiorly _retarded_.

"How was _I_ supposed to know they'd go fanatic?!" Miranda yelled in retort, "How was I supposed to know that Vido had his own little  harem going on down here, playing favourites with his command staff and turning them into radical jealous lunatics?! He probably put the bastards in charge of these lot here on purpose, _hoping_ they'd set off the bomb and rid him of his least favourite stalkers in the process!"

 _Deserved in kind for words:_

 _A shockwave of biotic blue_

 _\- Pure violence_

 _A hallway in fragments_

 _Window to an empty room_

 _\- As my soul_

 _Pipes have fallen – writhing:_

 _To the floor, grossly motile_

 _\- Phallic snakes_

 _Shit. That one's alright - I should write that one down... But first:_ "Oh... What's that you say: _Stalking?_ What _is_ that exactly? Is it like... checking people's mail, bugging their rooms... Oh – hey – isn't that what you were doing for the Illusive Man from day one?"

A dirty smirk from Queeny: "You're just worried about your questionable sex toy extranet searches. Don't worry – you can rest assured: your secret's safe with me." What's with the wink?! And- _The shit did she know about that?! No way she'd know that without help!_

'With _indignation':_ "You wha-?! I oughta –"

Don't you just _hate_ it when that bitch is smug? And just look at her now – here it comes:

"I never pegged you for a strap-on kinda girl. Surprised me."

Shit. Say something. _Say_ something! Don't just stand there looking all shocked and gormless..! _Ha! I know:_

"Don't blame _me_ for the fact you never have any fun and wouldn't know a good time if it jumped up and bit you in your  genetically perfect ass. _I_ just have a better imagination." - Don't stick your tongue out. People'll think you're a kid or something.

"Sorry I can't speculate without proof."

You sure you heard that fucking right?! Replay: ' _Sorry I can't speculate without proof.'_ ... ... ... _You hitting on me cheerleader?!_ Fuck. No time to figure her out: lots of screams coming from over that way now. Wasn't me, wasn't her... Shepard? Maybe. Or not. Whatever. Here they come. And today's winner is...

* * *

"Shepard!" Jack yelled out and held fire. "'Bout time you showed up!"

Stepping over bodies with Kasumi and Jacob in tow Shepard answered: "Looks like I missed most of the party."

"We lost contact with Tali about twenty minutes ago," Miranda began to explain but Shepard raised an arm:

"It's OK, she's fine and all the civilians are accounted for. Looks like the bluff that didn't hold for you, _did_ hold for her – at least long enough for them to get out of the way. Some of the newer Blue Suns recruits surrendered and decided they didn't sign up for murdering civies, so they helped Tali get breather masks for everyone. They helped get everyone out of range of the potential explosion to an old underground warehousing facility a kilometre outside the habitat. How's the bomb?"

There was a seriousness about Shepard – an edge to her words that ears as smart as Miranda's could tell – something _bad_ had happened, _before_ she got here.

"Still intact, thankfully. Legion's been dismantling it." Miranda looked over her shoulder and Legion's head popped up the other side of a row of desk monitors:

"Shepard Commander: The bomb is now safe to move. Officer Lawson and Jack provided us with adequate time to complete the necessary modifications."

"Good job." Shepard nodded. "Let's clear this up and go home. You can fill me in on the details when we get back. Kasumi – signal Tali and tell her that the civilians can head home. Tell her to let the Blue Suns that helped her go with a warning and a promise that the next time we catch them up to no good, they won't be so lucky."

"Yes Commander." – Kasumi walked off a little ways and set to that task.

"I've never seen anybody fight with such fury before." - Miranda waved a hand as she stood up, placing her gun back in its holster. She tried to read Shepard's reaction, to see if that had anything to do with the darkness that presently hung about her like a heavy raincloud. Placing a hand on her hip she added:

"The leader of these men and his second in command went absolutely crazy after he got the news that Vido was dead – we were escorting them to a secure area and he just _lost_ it. I guess the rest of them thought they had us outnumbered and decided they should just go with it. It was harder than I would have expected but we managed."

Shepard shook her head: "A more manipulative son of a bitch I've not met since Aria. Makes you wonder how many young men Vido seduced who could have done something better with their lives."

Miranda raised an eyebrow and shook her head in disbelief. "It surprises me that Cerberus never figured out Vido's little harem. We just thought he was msyogynistic – he ran a tab for his crews at several Asari brothels – and even had an account of his own. It's not the sort of thing we usually miss. He covered his tracks exceptionally well."

Shepard shrugged – "The more I know of the man I'm not surprised he managed to keep it hidden. Vido was paranoid – even more so than Nassana Dantius. He even had someone else pretending they were head of the Blue Suns, whilst he controlled everything from behind the scenes. With loyalty like the kind _he_ inspired, keeping secrets is easy. Although how he _ever_ garnered so strong a power of attraction is a mystery to _me_."

"Funny – I thought you had a thing for bad boys?" – That from Jack, chipping in cheekily over Miranda's shoulder whilst she helped Legion with some of the heavier lifting.

Shepard threw a scathing glare in Jack's direction. _That_ caught Miranda's attention – _did something happen between her and Zaeed?_ It was only there for a split second before Shepard backtracked to take the remark for what it was. Of  course everyone knew they'd got together and may unpredictably make mention of it henceforth; they'd _made_ it public. Or _he_ had, at least. If it that was a problem for her, she'd better get used to it...

In truth what was really going on in Shepard's head was a paradox: 'commander' and 'lover' were two very different mindsets. It was being reminded of that which had sparked that reaction. They needed her to be different things. It was hard enough for her to pick one and have to drop the other when both were screaming need of her. Getting a reminder then of the one she hadn't picked, brought the stabbing panic of an urgent task as left undone – all the worries associated with it suddenly wanted _in_ to her action list. A blink and a breath later she managed to focus, albeit with her stomach now in knots:

"I'll... leave your team to sort out the rest of this mess – I should get back to the Normandy." – And with those words Shepard was gone. Jack waited an appropriate length of time for her to be out of earshot before she asked Miranda:

"Something else happen we don't know about?"

"Beats me." Miranda shrugged. "Something must have happened on their deployment. I guess if it's important we'll hear about it soon enough. C'mon. Let's get this stuff sorted. I think I'm going to need a shower in addition to normal decontamination after this one." She sighed and shook her head: "Cultists and fanatics tend to have that effect on me." She rotated her shoulder blades and feigned a shudder.

* * *

REFERENCES:

Genetics and Epigenetics: fascinating subjects. The reference that Kelly makes to the statistical likelihood of being born gay are drawn from the current (at the time of writing) state of scientific research. At time of writing, there is a lot less research into female sexualities, but for males the research she mentions is true to real life.

You can find out more about the studies that have looked at the influential role of a mother having carried previous male foetuses if you check the Wikipedia entry for 'Fraternal birth order and male sexual orientation'. I would guess that the first reference listed on the Wikipedia entry would probably be the best academic study to start with:

Blanchard R (1997). "Birth order and sibling sex ratio in homosexual versus heterosexual males and females". Annu Rev Sex Res. 8: 27–67. PMID 10051890

There's also a nice article that I just found via google titled: "Professor: Hormones, stress, smoking increases likelihood of children born gay" which you can read. I also strongly recommend watching a TEDx Talk (one of the good ones), titled "Homosexuality: It's about survival - not sex" given by Dr. James O'Keefe MD, which sums up several bits of research I drew from for this chapter. The links to female fertility I think are drawn from an Italian study - not sure if he gives a list of references with the talk (can't remember).

All in all, who you choose to sleep with is a really complicated matter! It seems there are genes that predispose you, but to complicate matters some genes can be turned off and on for a whole host of varying reasons before you're even born. Then there's also an element of 'mind over matter' which we all have to differing extents – what we want from life or what we need, and what we _think_ we want or need, can be influenced by external (environmental) factors.

[All that's before we take into account other things that can affect brains like parasites, injury, viruses, and certain genetic disorders. Not saying those have anything to do with sexuality, but I suppose on rare occasions it's possible they may play a role.]

Back to what I really want to say: Maybe you're straight (so far) because you were told that 'happiness' and 'success' come with money and popularity. In that case if you're female, the whole world is tipped in your favour if you play to the heterosexual male gaze. You can't have kids (as easily) if you're gay, so if 'having children' is something you've been told is the most meaningful thing you'll ever do in life you will make effort to find members of the opposite sex attractive. What if you've simply been told gay people will be tortured in hell for all eternity, or you were told it wasn't 'natural' so you must be at fault? People can live all sorts of lies if they think their survival depends upon it.

Maybe you're gay (or trans) because frankly you never fit the pigeonhole of your gender's supposed talents and 'naturally inclined [socially acceptable] interests', so you were left feeling like you must therefore be the opposite gender, just stuck in your gender's body. A really bad experience (or a really good one) can tip the balance and there's no knowing for absolute certain, where you'll ultimately find yourself although predisposition will make some romantic/sexual choices more likely than others, but we all fall somewhere along a sliding scale and as per 'normal distribution', very few people will fall at the absolute extremes of being 100% gay, or 100% straight. You're only straight or gay until proven otherwise by fate or opportunity!

Which is why I drop that little bit in for Miranda and Jack in this chapter. This story isn't about them but I think it's nice to imagine the possibilities... Because this chapter is about the things that can change us, and the things that can shape us.


	20. Chapter 20 - Love-blind And Pain-numbed

~ Finding The Heart ~

Love-blind And Pain-numbed

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Returning to the Normandy, Shepard waited anxiously to have quiet about her enough to find the nearest solitary corner and enquire of EDI, privately:

"EDI: What's Zaeed's status?"

"Asleep, Commander. Yeoman Chambers asked that I monitor the Starboard Cargo Hold for noises suggesting aggravation. After a period of reduced movement, I notified Kelly that there had been no change and she asked Dr. Chakwas to check on him. Dr. Chakwas concluded that she suspected even an Elcor disco wouldn't wake him."

 _EDI... are you attempting to cheer me up..?_ "Thank you EDI."

"Shall I attempt to wake him?"

"No, let him sleep. He obviously needs it."

"Yes Commander." _Click._ At least EDI knew to leave her be.

Shepard found herself temporarily absent of being _needed -_ a thing in itself that left her a little dizzy, until she remembered: there _was_ something else she still needed to do. She grabbed a savoury snack from Gardner's kitchen which she pocketed on her way to see her next problem...

The doors to the Main Battery opened and shut smoothly behind her. Their noise and her footsteps were audible enough, but Garrus ignored her, continuing his calibrations. He knew it was her. She knew he knew it was her, too.

She folded her arm and stared at his non-responsive back: "You shot Vido in the head."

Garrus continued tapping away at his console without turning. "You told me to take the opportunity if it came up."

Shepard folded her arms. "To be sure he wouldn't _escape_. He wasn't _going_ anywhere. You knew I had the situation under control, Zaeed was backing down, and then you shot him. I want to know _why."_

"You're always trying to teach me mercy. I heard what he said. It seemed like the most merciful thing to do."

"...What?!" Shepard dropped her arms to her side and stepped forward.

Garrus spun round to face her. "The man was in deeply in _love_ with someone he could never have. Do you have any idea what that can _do_ to a person?" Garrus heard his own words and cringed in the momentary uncertainty as to whom it was, precisely, he was talking about... But he knew _that_ was stupid, and presently irrelevant. He centred his thoughts in just half a breath as he launched into the proper logic of what he'd been about to say:

"Look at what he did for the sake of it Shepard – the monster he became. Look what it did _to him,_ not just Zaeed." Garrus folded his arms and planted his feet apart as he straightened to his full height. "He was already dead on the _inside_... What he did to others was consequence of that. More than that he was never going to get over Zaeed, and if he'd lived, he'd only have come back to haunt you too."

Shepard scoffed at that. "My list of enemies is pretty long. He'd have had to get in line first."

Garrus knew how it looked or rather how it _would_ have looked to him had he been a silent observer of this conversation between Shepard and someone else. Compassion for a comrade in arms? Huh. More like seeing in Vido things he feared lay within himself, if it came to pass that he found himself falling in love with... But he knew not to finish that sentence. Vido's story was a warning - a warning against denial, and refusal to ratify the consequences of accepting that you weren't the one meant to be with someone you wanted. You had to accept what they wanted and respect their right to choose, if you truly even came _close_ to legitimately claiming that you cared about them and their welfare.

Garrus thought that over, and accepted the truth as it cycled round once more – yes, Shepard was the only non-Turian that could have turned his head. _Could_ have, but hadn't - not when it could have mattered. The reason for that was likely quite sensible: _he_ simply hadn't caught _her_ attention, and deep down knew it. So... he had looked away. It was a simple enough equation to balance. He wasn't dumb enough to throw out of the window all that he had and truly valued already, to chase something he knew he _couldn't_ have. It was the most precious of things he valued - her _friendship_ – which he was really acting upon right now. It wasn't his own feelings he wanted to spare: it was _hers..._ and he had good reason.

"You think he was last in line. You sure about that?" he stared at her, cold and hard.

"Meaning what?" She stared right back at him in like fashion.

"Seeing you place your hands on Zaeed, I watched Vido's face change. I _knew_ he was going to kill you if I didn't do something about it." _Now drop it and leave it alone..._ _Please_ _._

"He had a broken arm and a broken leg!" Shepard frowned and widened her eyes in rebuttal.

He'd tried. Now came the thing he would never have wanted to be the one to say, felt like he should never have _had_ to say... Which speaking aloud would make consequentially real and therefore something he really  did need to worry about... He hesitated. _Get it over with._

"Maybe so." Garrus leaned back against the console. "But he was still reaching for a weapon."

Shepard's mouth opened halfway then shut, she stood frowning and blinking, her eyes tracking sideways to grasp at memories of things she could have missed. He'd basically all but said to her face: _Shepard, you've been compromised_ – and the words struck her hard enough to make her adjust her stance in order to retain her balance. It hurt to see her recoil from his words. He knew too well what they would mean to her. Such words elicited a kind of panic few non-military people could understand. His mandibles flexed as his conscience compelled him to find a way to salve the look she now wore:

"It was a small pistol," He shrugged, and tried to make the whole thing less than it was: "...hidden at the back of his thigh – I had the better angle to spot it." Another sigh followed, however, as he his conscience _also_ compelled him to fully disclose all relevant information:

"But it still _could_ have killed you at that range, especially considering you'd taken your helmet off. So... I pulled the trigger."

 _And you did take your helmet off, didn't you?_ _And you turned your back. How could you not see it Shepard? You laid hands on Zaeed and Vido's world crumbled in vain for all he'd tried to stop Zaeed from having, yet you didn't think to consider he'd have tried to kill you for it? Even with his very last breath, he'd have been trying to kill you!_

-Garrus blinked, stopping that indignation from tumbling out of his mouth, just like he'd learned to do the hard way, from a dozen broken friendships. He also _reminded_ himself that worship was the furthest point from understanding, and that his anger was more like that of an Asari acolyte discovering an imperfection in their goddess, than frustration at the natural mistakes of a real person he called 'friend'. That anger needed to be toned down, because underneath it all, what he _really_ wanted to say was simply:

"I don't want to lose you twice, Shepard."

Shepard, for her part, recalled the heat of the moment when Zaeed had been about to end Vido's life himself. She hadn't even thought about how stupid her reaction had been until now, which doubled the blow. _I really_ _did_ _take off my helmet, didn't I?_ It made her blood run cold realising it: that all she'd cared about in that moment, was Zaeed. She'd been blind, deaf and numb to all else.

... _What the hell was I doing?!_

Shepard's voice went shaky and her mouth went dry. "...You're saying you saved my life?"

It occurred to her now just how much she'd must've hurt Vido in that one moment - perhaps almost as much as all the things he'd done to Zaeed put together... More, even, than those incredibly cruel words that Zaeed had uttered to him in the revelation. _She_ had _proved_ it – proved that Vido could never stop Zaeed from falling in love with someone else, or stop someone else from being the one whose words would always mean more to him. Half of her scolded her for that cruelty. The other half focused instead on the fact that Garrus had been all that had stood between her living and her becoming just the crowning final act in this play of epic tragedy. That was sobering, to the point of terror.

Garrus paused in his reply. "...I did what needed to be done." Now _his_ was the voice that was shaky. It had dropped to a whole new pitch of growl.

"...Thank you." It nearly choked her. "I uh..." She tried to find the words to move on, to recover from the shock: "I'm glad at least it wasn't Zaeed that killed him." She stood there still almost shaking, her face slowly turning back to a lesser and uncertain scowl.

Garrus nodded appreciably, glad of the change of subject. "I can't imagine how Zaeed must feel. When I realised Sidonis must have turned on me, it felt like the whole galaxy was collapsing around me. I just can't even level with the kind of betrayal Zaeed has experienced at the hands of Vido."

Shepard relaxed: the lines on her face telling then only how tired she was. Garrus could see the worry was still there, though. Turning to go, she hesitated to say at last:

"Thank you for being the one to tell me I screwed up." _It must have been hard for you to tell me. I'm sorry I put you in that position._ "I won't let it happen again." She nodded soberly, taking a haggard breath. "...I should go –"

Garrus paused a moment too long before realising he had one last thing to say _._ He grabbed after her arm in that last half-second, to tell her the last piece of bad news he knew she really _should_ hear, that he might be the only one to tell:

"Wait- Listen to me-" He pulled her back enough for the door to automatically close. "There's something else." She stopped and turned to face him, now wearing a _very_ serious expression – crisis ready.

"Shepard..." A pause, "... Zaeed..." – he really didn't know how to say this, but... "He's probably questioning just about every decision in life he's ever made right now, asking himself if Vido influenced each and every last one of them, in some way or other."

"I know." She stared back at him, solid and undeterred. _Shepard..._

"Sure. But what you may _not_ realise is that _that_ door can swing both ways: questioning your entire existence? That's painful enough to break anybody... and the person you become afterwards when you pick up the pieces is  rarely the one you were before. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. I think told that before but..." He sighed and stepped away: "What I'm trying to say is... Right now he's more dangerous than he ever has been. Do you understand?"

Shepard stared into those ice-blue eyes with pained honesty and answered: "...I understand."

"So long as you know." He let go of her arm. She nodded. His concern was sobering, but she would be seeing this through - it was all she knew how to do. After taking a deep breath and letting it go, Garrus folded his arms again and added:

"I uh... don't know if you would want to know but while you were on K03 cleaning up that bomb, Kelly and I talked and I did some investigating of Vido's past. Kelly can fill you in on the psychology details if you're interested but what I thought you should know is that the Demon Maws – the gang who Vido told Zaeed were responsible for attacking Alice and burning down her apartment?" He paused for a breath. "Vido's older _brothers_ belonged to that gang."

Shepard's shoulders slumped in unsurprised dismay. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I wouldn't be surprised if his brothers had it coming though, to be honest. I'm sure you probably got the same impression I did: Vido's family probably weren't exactly kind to him." She shook her head, "Vido was nothing if not efficient: take out a romantic rival, secure Zaeed's focus for building up the Blue Suns, take out a rival gang... kill off some of the family that gave him so much grief... Better yet: do it all in one go."

 _And how does a victim of someone like that, who'd unwittingly been a puppet for most of his life, walk away after discovering the truth? Garrus is right – I have no idea what to expect..._ She turned to leave but Garrus motioned to catch her arm again, so she stopped and turned to face him once again.

"Last thing before you go – I swear:" Garrus unfolded his arms. "Are you OK?"

...He may as well have punched her in the stomach. She was none-too-glad of the reminder when it dawned upon her that he had something specific in mind, and exactly what was. He was, nonetheless, the closest friend she had in the entire galaxy. She _owed_ him an answer.

"Honestly?" She blinked, her eyes flickering elsewhere and back again, "Not sure how I feel." She stood there hesitantly having taken a step towards the doorway, reluctant to answer questions – arguing about Zaeed was easier than talking about _herself_.

"Sit." Garrus ordered her, and given how rare it was for him to do so, she obliged. Already-tired limbs slouched and she plopped onto the bench, defeated by the over-burdening weight that seemed then to then have fallen upon her. Garrus walked off out of the Battery and straight into Gardner, although she barely noticed him leave and come back – so lost in her thoughts as she quickly became. He came back with hot drinks for the both of them.

"I should really get some rest. I'm off-duty." She pleaded, shaking her head and somewhat pathetically attempting to slide out of the conversation she knew was coming.

"It can wait." Garrus put a steaming hot mug of soup into her hand. It smelled of life and richness she sorely needed. _He's far too good at bribes..._

She still tried to resist: "Garrus –"

"It can wait." He wasn't budging, and there was nothing more stubborn than a Turian with a stick up his ass over something. He leaned against the wall opposite, guarding the door from her exit.

"Alright, alright." Shepard sighed and shook her head again. She stared down at her soup, and took a deep breath. "Well... I _wasn't_ prepared to find the man that killed my family and my friends, scarred my life and changed the course of it forever." - Punctuated with a shrug.

Garrus nodded after a pause. "You know – you really should have been a cop. You have _amazing_ luck when it comes to tying up loose ends."

Shepard laughed at that and took a whiff of the mug's contents: Salarian spiced soup.

"You can say that again." She shook her head. "First Elanos Haliat, now Solem Dal'Serah."

Garrus nodded. "And all the rest in-between. Remember Rana Thanoptis?"

Shepard, mid-sip of steaming-hot soup, laughed, and nearly choked in the process.

"How could I forget?" She coughed and smiled. "That woman is walking disaster." He was right – she _did_ have a knack for running into the same people over and over again. But the smile faded: "Meeting Solem Dal'Serah makes me feel like what happened to me on Mindoir was _fated_ to happen." She took a gulp of soup and winced – it was too hot. " _Slavers._ " She swallowed again, eyes watering from the heat.

"Homeworld hit by slavers. Chosen for N-school because of how I survived being chased by slavers. Fighting in the Skillian Blitz – slavers _again_. Meeting Tabitha on the Citadel... Her being one of the people the slavers actually  took in that same attack on Mindoir that left me orphaned. That was a scary show of what I _could_ have been. Never told anybody at the time, but it really shook me up. Then later I go hunting for a bomb only to find the bomb was a prop for someone who in fact was hunting for _me_ \- Elanos Haliat, who actually _orchestrated_ the Skillian Blitz..."

She took a breath: "And now: Solem Dal'Serah. I ended up facing the man _responsible_ for the strike on Mindoir when I was a child. And if all that isn't co-incidence enough, I find out that it was  my mother who killed his brother in the raid." Shaking her head, she gripped her soup harder, feeling the heat through her gloved hands. "Every turn of my life, there they are: slavers."

"How are you supposed to move on and leave the past in the past, when it keeps biting you in the ass or your history keeps trying to repeat itself? You said I should've been a cop but I _could_ have made it my life's work to hunt down slavers and end the slave trade. I _didn't_. Part of me thinks that's because ever since that day on Mindoir, I've wanted to detach myself from that past and not let it define me. Now, it rather feels like it's chosen _me_. Like I don't get a say. I'm facing down the Reapers and all along the way, it just keeps popping up into my life for me to deal with."

She trailed off quietly, lost in her thoughts for a moment, then muttered as her eyes glazed over, recalling memories that were _not_ her own...

"I think about the Reapers... about how they 'harvest' people... about their 'indoctrination'... and... I see similarities... Unfeeling monsters that rob people of choices, of freedom, of agency over their own _lives_..."

Shepard was quiet like that for a time while Garrus just stared at her, and remembered the first time _he_ saw her get a Prothean vision. She had that same look on her face afterwards. Kaidan had told him about the Beacon on Eden Prime, and how she had never quite been the same after that.

Garrus tried to cheer her up and mellow the mood: "Luck. Sure as hell you have it. With you, there's no coincidences." He gulped at his own hot drink – something far more spicy. "Definitely should have been a cop." His eyes lit up and his mandibles relaxed in the Turian equivalent of a smile. "Or a SpecTRe." Shepard laughed loudly then. He was incorrigible.

"Humnn." She nodded, and lifted her mug to that with feigned cheer. They both knew how _that_ had worked out. She blew the surface of the dull green liquid that floated bits of vegetable and fish in her mug and took another gulp, one that didn't sting this time.

"The one thing I'm actually _glad_ about in all of this, is that I found out about my mother. All these years I never knew what  really happened to my parents. Knowing she died fighting... I guess it was a relief. Knowing she nailed Solem Dal'Serah's brother in the process? _Bonus!_ It was imagining her fighting to her last breath as an untrained, inexperienced civilian, that kept me going through Alliance training. I wanted to believe that if she had the courage to give all that she could give to stand for what she believed in, despite the full knowledge that it was absolutely futile, then _I_ was capable of that too. I didn't _need_ to pass the programme; I didn't need to 'win' anything."

"No threat, no reward, and nothing I endured held influence over me under that focus. The only thing that mattered was giving everything I had to _try_. So long as I did my best, I would not feel like a failure." Shepard took another gulp of soup and seemed to grow stronger in the taking of it. "Now I know that belief wasn't just a lie I made up to comfort myself, it was the truth. More than that, it proves I knew my mother. Losing her so long ago, that's something I'd come to doubt."

Garrus lifted his cup in half a cheer, "Your mother was really something."

Shepard raised her mug in likewise fashion. "Without a doubt she was." They both drank deeply. Shepard stared at what was left in her mug, and reflected sadly:

"I... still wonder... whether my dad died first or second..." She pulled a pained laugh, and Garrus frowned at her. "My mother was the one who had the instinct to fight. I think it'd be better if he'd died first." She shrugged. "He'd have died imagining that mum could have survived, that she'd have taken care of me. Then mum would've died, knowing she was with him when he went, that nothing worse happened to him, and that with all I knew about the woods and how to survive, I'd manage to escape and then get by in life by the wisdom they'd passed onto me. She'd have believed in me without a doubt. Dad in her position would just have worried!" She laughed. Her eyes watered. "That way around it's easier to imagine them both being at peace." She laughed again, it sounded ridiculous out loud - he was the first person she'd ever told it to. Nevertheless Garrus just nodded as if it made perfect sense.

Garrus agreed: "Warriors are better at dying alone. In Turian culture, everyone does their duty, but different people are better at doing different things. Some of us are better at mechanics, some of us are better at making soups..." Shepard tilted her head with a quizzically raised eyebrow at that, but he raised a hand in admittance: "Not me – Gardner made your soup. Anyway, some of us are better at being the ones left behind, the ones making last stands. It's part of our cultural philosophy that those that can, do; whatever that happens to be. Your mother sounds like she had a soldier's soul."

"Yeah." Shepard half-smiled, and stared off into the bulkhead. "Maybe she did." She drank the rest of her soup, and toyed with her mug before standing up. "I... really _should_ get some rest."

"Yes, you should." Garrus nodded his agreement, and waved a shooing hand towards the door as he finished the last of his own drink.

"Thanks." She said, and met his eyes in the thanking as she left. Garrus simply bowed his head, and turned back to his calibrations.


	21. Chapter 21- When All Other Lights Go Out

~ Finding The Heart ~

When All Other Lights Go Out

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Spicy-sweet dried meat [or whatever Asari Miamiranus actually _is_ – Shepard  had looked it up once, but still couldn't work out if it was animal, mineral or vegetable] chips were strewn across the bed. Shepard hadn't even realised she'd face-planted into her pillow halfway through eating them, until upon waking up, she had a need to peal one off her cheekbone. Only moments ago it seemed, she was trying to force them down with a cup of Oolong tea. She held her head, straining to recall what had happened and what she needed to do today. She showered again – _small mercies like_ _real_ _showers be blessed –_ then finished her meat chips, grabbed a cup of coffee, dressed and headed down to check in on Zaeed.

EDI informed her that he was in the Hangar Deck now, so she knew what he'd be doing when she walked in, even before the door opened and she heard the _thwack, thwack, thump-thump..._ _ **–smack–**_ ...of his exertions. She approached him loudly, expecting him to be at least as focused as he was the last time she walked in on him like this.

"Hey." She said, fairly loudly, friendly and commiserate. No response. "Zaeed. Hey." She tried again, still no response. She rolled her eyes, sighed, then confidently stepped between him and the punch bag. She deflected the blow she had intended to halt, in favour of dodging the punch that followed it coming _her_ way. She had half-expected it – he'd probably already started that second strike in his mind before she'd even moved between him and the bag. As his fist found no target she grabbed at that wrist and pulled him forward, unbalancing him.

Catching a glimpse of his face head-on, her expression sobered. She saw the wildness in his eyes. Remembering Garrus' words she'd half pre-empted he'd regain his balance and try again, but thankfully he didn't. Instead he overcompensated, and stumbled backwards a little, although that did more to take _her_ off balance than if he'd actually been trying to hit her. His expression turned to bewilderment as she stumbled with him. His balance was more than a little off, and she realised he might actually fall. She grabbed his elbow with her other hand as she snugged the boxing glove on the hand that belonged to it under her own elbow, against her ribs. Bracing her feet, she pulled him forwards again. Close quarters now, she stared into his eyes and her worry began to grow.

He looked dazed – as if he didn't even know he'd just swung at her – or was only just realising it in shock. Dark tattoos showed through his sweat-soaked formerly-white vest, as did the dark body hair that covered his chest, visible through the material right down to his boxing shorts. They stood there locked together, the smell of sweat almost overpowering while he only stared at her, silent but for the heaving of his chest.

 _She came..._

"Zaeed..?" Shepard frowned to study him in the dim light. Sure that he had regained his balance, she released his arm and stepped back to get a better look. Something wasn't right. His eyes were glassy, vacant... his expression hollow. He was pale. Looking down she realised his legs were badly bruised, and his knees were grazed enough that they had bled. She heard a drip – the horridly familiar sound of a liquid thicker than water striking a deck plate, with the consistency of... _Oh goddess..._ Looking down at the floor she could see something dark, wet, _and a familiar colour_. Looking to her own hand confirmed her suspicion.

 _Why'd she come..?_

For one frightful moment she pictured Zaeed as she had once pictured Hiro – who's cause of death she had never seen with her own eyes but had been told... Lying on the floor, blood everywhere, dead. Quickly she grabbed his boxing glove and forced his hand to turn, exposing his wrist. He made no resistance. She let go the breath she was holding with relief to see no open wounds – the blood was coming from underneath the edge of the crimson boxing glove, inside it.

 _What's a woman like her want..._

Looking up to him in the hopes of some explanation she received none. He only stared at her, expressionless. Urgently she pulled off the glove. He didn't resist, didn't grimace. His hand was coated with congealing blood, some dried, some not, dirtying the supportive bandage he had tied on. He had bleeding blisters where un-bandaged skin had rubbed against the inside of the glove, and red patches of bandage around his knuckles and finger bones. Shocked but driven by urgency, she peeled off the bandages. He didn't even flinch. A close inspection of his hands showed he must have been going at the punch bag without gloves _or_ bandages at first, then – already grazed and bruised – he must've put on bandages, maybe later the gloves? And then he'd... Just. Kept. Going.

 _...with a goddamn scoundrel like me?_

"Zaeed!" She exclaimed, shaken, and looked up at him. "Zaeed?! You did this to yourself?"

All she got from him was that same vacant stare – like he'd gone somewhere else and stayed there, detached from whatever his body had been doing. _Battlesleep –_ she recalled things Thane had once said, and wondered if that was what this was: allowing a person to keep on going through a task, even when their body was breaking. She stormed off to the wall-mounted emergency med-kit and took out a pack of bandages, a tube of medigel and some alcohol wipes. Stuffing the bandage and medigel under her armpit to leave her hands free, she opened one of the wipes and used it to sterilise her own hands as best she could before storming back. Medigel is self-sealing but he was going to need some kind of padding for a while, and before that, cleaning.

 _She cares..._

He hadn't moved – his hand was still hanging in the air where she'd let go of it, as if frozen in time. As she fumbled getting the next sachet of wipes open he started moving his hand slowly, turning it over, staring at it like it wasn't his. She attempted to clean all the wounds on that side – there were some nasty ones on the knuckles – then turning it over she checked the other side. She stuffed the dirty wipes back into their sachets and dumped them in a pocket.

 _...about everything. Even me._

She scowled: "How long have you been down here?" She lifted her eyes long enough to ask, an irrational anger boiling up inside of her and only him to direct it towards. No answer. She began smoothing cool blue medigel into his hand – _might as well blanket the whole bloody thing_... He still hadn't answered her.

She yelled at him: "Zaeed answer me! How _long_ have you been down here?!"

It didn't occur to her in that moment, how absent EDI was, who would otherwise have answered that question for him. Zaeed barely even blinked, as if she were shouting at him from behind soundproof glass. She huffed and turned to her next task: bandaging. His hand was pliable in hers, and he only stood there, watching her work – observing her ministrations as if he were studying them, still breathing heavily through his nose.

 _Why does she even give a damn..? I'm a wreck..._

She abandoned that hand once she'd finished bandaging and moved to inspect the other. Removing the crimson boxing glove she found _that_ hand was no better off, and was glad she'd brought twice the amount of kit she needed to attend to the first. Again: he didn't flinch, despite the obvious pain the condition of his hand should be causing him as she pealed blood-soaked bandages off of it.

"Zaeed..." She grumbled disapprovingly, determined not to let herself pity him. Shaking her head, she carefully cleaned the wounds on _that_ hand. She wanted to throttle him, but a bloodied, just-bandaged finger brushed surface of her cheek, bringing butterflies to her stomach. She hesitated for a moment, her eyes slowly gravitating upwards... But she stopped herself before they met his, frowned, and batted the interfering hand away in exaggerated irritation.

– _Nothing but a goddamned waste of time._

 _My whole life... wasted._

Applying the medigel she snapped: "You've made a right mess of yourself haven't you."

She had no intention of giving him sympathy for self-inflicted injury – there was a ship and a crew and a galaxy that needed him and he'd thought nothing of them, nothing of _her_... And she _needed_ him, damn it, like she'd never needed anyone. It was his fault. All his fault. He'd made her weak, and now she needed him and he did _this?_ What the hell else was she meant to do?! No, she'd be angry with him for this if it killed her, to spite the tears of worry that wanted to well up in her eyes. She pulled another length of bandage from the roll, throwing a wary glance towards the previously-bandaged hovering hand as she worked – it clenched into a half-fist, then opened again, testing dexterity. He brought it back to brush her cheek. Her tongue caught in her throat.

 _Does she know even how fucking_ _rare_ _she is..?_

She nearly choked as she scorned him: "I can't concentrate while you're doing that." She batted the offending hand away, again. She attended to the bandaging of his knuckles down to the joints of his fingers, but the interfering hand was back.

 _Nobody else in the goddamn galaxy like her._

She hesitated with a lengthy exhale, then decided it would be best to simply ignore it. All the while seven words kept repeating themselves like a corrupt audiofile in her head: _I need to get him to Chakwas... I_ _need_ _to get him to Chakwas..._ – as inwardly her panic spread.

 _And_ _she_ _chooses_ _me_ _?! Ain't right in the head. Can't be._

He puffed a gust of air through his nose in that way he had where you could never tell the difference between causes: humour, indignation, mocking, or simply because a bit of dust landed near a nostril. _The hand_ was persistent. Slow, feather-light strokes graced her cheek. It was as if he were studying her in maddening detail... She already uncomfortably  knew he was staring at her.

 _Has he gone crazy?!_ She tried to concentrate, dismissing the distraction. _No he's just being damned stupid_ – she told herself – _Don't humour him_. She tied off the bandage firmly but jerkily enough that it should have made him flinch. Annoyingly it didn't – he was still fussing her with a bandaged finger, that caressed up to, then down, her hairline; a motion that made her spine tingle and seemingly left her paralysed. Their work done; her hands hovered, unmoving but for her managing to curl her fingers into her palms. The newly bandaged hand fell limply to his side, as the fingers of the other brushed again down from her temple to her chin with just three fingertips. Her heart skipped a beat, and she called herself an idiot for allowing it.

 _Old washed up bounty hunter and the SpecTRe..._

– _Sounds like a shitty porno-B-Movie._

He raised the hand she'd just been working on to touch her wrist. Bandaged fingers slid along her skin to weightlessly coil around her fingers. She felt a wave of heat pass over her and her cheeks flush. He held her fingers in his hand as he carefully moved towards her, cupping her cheek softly with the other as he attempted to urge her jaw upwards. He wanted her eyes to meet his.

She stubbornly refused – he was dripping with sweat and she could see where this was going. Quite frankly the smell of that plus the blood conjured up thoughts of death and gunfire – not romance – _and_ he was scaring her. Everything felt wrong. Just... wrong. _What's the matter with him?!_ _I've got to snap him out of this – I'm worried what he'll do to himself if I don't..._ She calmed herself and tried to think, pulling away in repulsion at what he'd done to himself.

 _I don't deserve her..._

 _...do I?_

"You owe me an explanation for this, Massani," She tried, mustering a stern expression to accompany her commanding tone, "But first we're taking you straight to Dr Chakwas for a look over. Got it?" She scowled coldly. He only stared at her as if he hadn't heard her. She cuffed him sideways across his temple for not responding and yelled at him:

"Answer me soldier!" Her eyes were as fiery as her expression was sober. She couldn't help it – she was furious. Furious with _what_ was perhaps a good question. Truthfully he'd _scared_ her, was _still_ scaring her, and the only way Shepard ever dealt was fear was to turn it into anger. Zaeed didn't rise to the bait – he didn't even seem to _care_ that he'd just been struck, although the force of her clouting him had made him look away.

 _Hell my life is a meaningless piece of shit anyhow..._

He stared at the floor a moment. Slowly he turned his face towards her again and his expression finally took on some emotion, but not what she'd hoped for from the man she knew. Instead his expression was one of loss, pain, emptiness and profound uncertainty – the like of which was so uncharacteristic of him it left her dumbfounded. He half-closed his eyes and reached for her again. She shoved at his chest with both hands:

"Enough: we're going to the Medical Bay." _Chackwas. Chakwas will know what to do._ She panicked. Looking elsewhere she tried to dodge looking again and seeing that expression, as she held him at arm's length. The way he was behaving... _Does he even know where he is?_ \- And there was a longing in his eyes. She worried what he was looking for. This was definitely neither the place nor the time to-

 _\- But she's the only thing left in it that's worth something..._

"Please."

\- The word choked its way past his lips, barely a murmur, but nonetheless that one word disarmed her. The strength in her arms drained away, Shepard found herself utterly unable to move. He gained ground again, her hands pressing against his chest as he stepped slowly towards her. _Still_ she refused to look up, urgently trying to figure a way out of the situation. A little hope of future aid, coupled with a sense of urgency, was usually enough to get a soldier back up on their feet. She knew how to comfort a friend – how to listen and to talk – but a lover? _People who love each other share more than words: they feel what it's like to_ _be_ _one another..._ She couldn't help but _feel_ it then, when eventually she looked into his eyes. That moment of empathy was almost unbearable: it made her feel hollow, wasted, used, and so terribly alone...

 _The only thing that's goddamned_ _real_ _..._

 _... In the whole goddamn fucking shebang..._

He slid one hand gently down her cheek and around her ear to rest on her nape. Taking back her hand as he had held it before, he raised it to his mouth, breathed through her fingers before placing them against his chest. He clumsily pressed her hand there with bandaged fingers. Shepard's eyes began to water despite herself. She stared through his collarbone frantically searching in her head for a way out – _What do I do? What do I do? What the hell should I_ _do_ _?!_

She moved to step away, sensing the threat of vulnerability within herself. _I can't keep the distance I need to be able to help him level himself out, can I?_ All her life she'd built a wall around her – brick by brick for every painful experience she'd endured but at the time had had but no choice to keep going, a brick for every time she couldn't afford to feel deeply and had had to set that need aside. Now _he_ wanted _in_ – Zaeed Massani, cold-blooded bounty hunter... He who should have had a wall at least as high as hers of his own... But his had crumbled.

 _I can't let go of her... She's.. all I have..._

" _Please..._ " He barely whispered to her, closing in again. Shepard's thoughts evaporated. When she didn't look up, Zaeed swallowed and exhaled with haggard breath as he added:

 _Hell I don't_ _care_ _if I don't deserve her..._

"I need you..."

Shepard's eyes widened: those were the words... that could break her. If she was lying on the floor bleeding out and all around her lay in ruin, _those_ were the words that would get her up. If she were five breaths from death and ready to face her end, _those_ were words that would make her spend her last breath trying to get up. As they tumbled from his quivering lips, she couldn't help but look up to meet his eyes once more. Sorrow overcame her. She could no longer escape the emotions her own mind wanted to run with.

"Zaeed..." She pleaded in return. _Don't make me feel...!_

His name was all she could muster and her eyes watered. He stroked a single index finger down her cheek and silenced her thoughts with a kiss. Her stomach was all butterflies. Her arms pressed against his chest as he embraced her, and she no longer cared that he was wet or stinking or bloodied or needing care, or that she needed to do something or be somewhere or be _anything_ other than a ball of emotion. She was lost in that moment, just... lost... Unable to focus on any other thought.

Still kissing her, he released her as his hands clumsily began to try (and fail) to undo her collar. She instantly knew where he was planning to go from there, and that realisation rallied her presence of mind. She gently pushed him away enough to break the kiss.

 _Don't make me fucking_ _beg_ _!_

"Alright." She nodded, and unknowingly replied to what he had been thinking. Hitching her breath then letting it go, she stroked down the un-scarred side of his face and she pressed her forehead to his as he pressed back, eyes closed.

"Alright," She said again, pulling backwards to stare at his tattoos through his vest for half a heart beat. She looked up again to meet his eyes, and with a kind and sincere smile:

"But please – not here, OK?" She looked towards the door with a tilt of her head and tried to put on a more confident half-smile. "C'mon, we need to get you cleaned up by Dr Chakwas, _then_ we can get you to my quarters. We can have a nice warm shower and _then_ -" -He jerked her face back round with his hand as he interrupted:

"Don't -"

She couldn't break his stare then – there was panic in his eyes. Panic no doubt reflected in her own as she was left only able to search his face for answers to a situation she didn't even know how to be _in_.

"Don't push me away." He pleaded again, his voice a gravelly whisper.

 _Show me_ _something_ _in my life that isn't a goddamned lie!_

" _Please..._ " His expression deadly serious, breathing erratic.

 _Show me she's really here..._

"I _need_ you." His breath stammered.

 _...That_ _I'm_ _really here..._

"I need you..." Tears welled in his eyes. He pressed his forehead to hers and clenched his eyes shut as a tear rolled slowly down his cheek. Pulling away just enough to angle his lips an inch away from hers, he repeated, merely a whisper:

"I _need_ you..."

 _I have to know there's at least_ _one_ _thing..._

 _...that isn't just another fucking lie..._

...And swallowed any further comment she might have had then with a kiss. Not that she'd have had any. She couldn't make him plead again. Not with those words. She couldn't bear to hear them again. _If it gives him peace, even if only for a little while, I'll do it... I'd do_ _anything_ _for that..._ She kissed him back, trying to convey with her tongue what she failed to shape into words. His manner had nothing of the fire she was used to, his hold was weak, almost like he was afraid to touch her. He frowned.

 _But everything I touch I break..._

There was no groping after her ass, no biting, no groaning – only silence and tentative fingers moving over her skin. He clenched his eyes shut, like he didn't trust what he was seeing. He tried to undo her tunic to no avail – his fingers too brutalised for dexterity. She helped him. The room was cold and so were his fingertips by the time they found their way under her shirt. She tried not to flinch. All the confidence, all the control, all of it was gone and there was only raw need – desperate, miserable, need.

 _Allahu akbar if this is real: don't let me fuck it up..._

He shivered. His senses blurred except for the feeling of coldness around him, and pain, there was that. He no longer knew where he was. All he knew was that _she_ was here, and she was warm, and he _wanted_ to feel her, to be as close to her as he could possibly be. _That_ was the only place that felt safe, the only place that felt like home anymore. He didn't want her to go away.

 _I'm so goddamn tired..._

Reality or dream... Nothing felt real except the pain – but it gave him hope, made him able to believe that at least she was real too, if he was feeling it. The more he thought about her the more he was able to focus past the pain – it was simply his tether to reality; a comforting reassurance. He could finally drop whatever it was that had been driving him mad: if all he had to think about was her.

 _My hands don't want to work anymore, and everything hurts..._

He was determined to hold onto her. He released her lips only so that he could breathe her in, dragging his nose over her ear and into her hair...

 _... But when I breathe her in I can't remember why I hurt..._

Softly over his shoulder Shepard spoke to the air above them: "EDI bar entry and all communication to this room until I say differently." – and tried to ensure that what she was expecting to be about to happen, would remain private.

 _...'Why' doesn't matter anymore._

 _... Pain doesn't matter anymore._

He'd backed her up against the Hammerhead – his eyes still closed the while he'd walked her this way. Shepard honestly wasn't sure if he even knew where they were or that it was the Hammerhead he'd backed her up against. She was too scared to ask; his whole 'being' seemed to be hanging by a thread, pinned only to her willingness to give him what he instinctively wanted. _Proof of something, perhaps..?_ She wondered what.

EDI's compliance was immediate, signified only by the sound of the locking mechanism engaging. Not even a word from the AI. That demonstrated an act of discretion, meaning EDI had a clue what was going on, after some fashion. Of course quite unavoidably after that realisation, Shepard instantly felt exposed. Her buttocks against the left thruster of the Hammerhead, she was forced to hold herself upright with one hand behind her as he pressed against her. She nervously looked over his shoulder towards the lift doors but Zaeed again swallowed her thoughts with a kiss and her frown melted away. She felt helpless yet somehow she knew that he was too – just as helpless, maybe even more so. It was hard to explain but she already felt naked, and she was practically still fully-clothed.

 _I feel so cold..._

Suddenly he lost his feet, collapsing against her, buckling under exhaustion. She caught him, but had to gently let him slide down to the floor. Resting his head on the decking, panic took hold. He wasn't moving.

"EDI tell Chakwas I want her in here, _now!_ Medical emergency!"

"Yes Commander."

"Zaeed!" She shook at his shoulder. "HEY!" She yelled at Zaeed and slapped his face but it was no use: he was out cold. Then to EDI: "EDI tell her she's going to need a stretcher!" A moment's consideration later for Zaeed's privacy, she added: "And tell her to come alone."

Shepard removed her tunic and threw it over Zaeed for warmth. Crouching down she took her his hand in hers and very gently held it, stroking lightly over the bandages.

"You crazy idiot – _now_ look what you've done to yourself..." She pulled a face and muttered under her breath: "You better be alright, you lunatic, because I'm going to space you after this." She rocked back and forwards. "You hear me? I'm going to space you..." A solitary tear fell from her cheek.

* * *

REFERENCES:

I'm sure the line "What's a woman [like her] want with a guy [like me]" or some variation of it, has been used a million times before, but I was thinking of the 1990 film 'Tremors' starring Kevin Bacon. The "Scoundrel" bit is a nod to my favourite scruffy-looking nerf herder: Han Solo from the 1977 film 'Star Wars IV: A New Hope'.

For those of you who recognise it, the line "...my life is a meaningless piece of shit anyhow" is a nod to the film Pitch Black, spoken by the character Johns who, like Zaeed, is a hard-ass mercenary-come-bounty-hunter with a taste for blood and revenge, who has a certain... moral flexibility... (more perhaps than Zaeed does) whom like the start of Finding The Heart (Book 1 - the beginning of my saga!) you meet in the depths of an addiction to substance abuse.

The title of this chapter is another nod to Tolkien's 'The Lord Of The Rings': "...a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out." spoken by the character Galadriel. It seemed to work for me for what Zaeed is desperately in need of.

The line "Everything I touch I break" is a line from "Everything I Touch" – another song from Stabbing Westward's album 'Darkest Days'. In fact much of that album just seems to fit Zaeed, to be honest.

I listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails songs whilst writing this, particularly from the album 'Fragile'. I forgot to mention in the chapter featuring Kelly, that I had an Alanis Morissette song stuck in my head for her - 'That I Would Be Good' - from the album 'Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie'.


	22. Chapter 22 - Crash Course: Brain Science

~ Finding The Heart ~

Crash Course: Brain Science

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

 _He'll be fine._ – Chakwas had said so with a wise smile, but she was only talking about the outer shell of the smelly lump of a man who lay unconscious in her Medical Bay, soaking up medigel through freshly bandaged hands. Shepard wasn't so sure about the man inside. He'd scared the bejesus out of her by the way he'd behaved in the Hangar Deck – like he hadn't even been fully sure  he was real, let alone that she was. She and Kelly had had a _loooong_ conversation after Zaeed was settled in the Medical Bay, during which Kelly had warned her that mental breakdown _was_... a possibility:

 _A lifetime of experiences teaches you things. To question them... To go so far as to question if they were_ _real_ _, is to question everything you've ever learned... and whether the 'you'_ _you_ _thought you were was ever truly real. You can throw your entire existence into question. Think of it as a systems' overload. You're faced with the prospect of questioning every choice you've ever made._

 _When a computer has to run a de-frag, it shuts down most of its activities to spare the processing power it needs for the job. That's kinda what Zaeed's mind is doing right now._

 _Even whilst we're awake, our subconscious is constantly accessing archived memories whenever it's triggered to look for them by some specific stimuli, such as a smell, sound, sensation... or just something we see. It's always running a little de-frag in the background which is what helps us grow. How often and how deeply we run such self-checks affects how malleable we are to new ideas we're exposed to. The human mind runs what I guess you'd call a 'routine de-frag' every day when we sleep – that's when the deeper de-frags are run, and that's why we fare so badly when forced to go without sleep._

 _Our subconscious needs to check that recently acquired memory files match up to our pre-existing filing system before those new memories get categorised, assigned the correct associative contexts (or in database terms: right fields to be used for a primary key that distinguishes individual entries), and then embedded in our long-term memory. This is so that when we run a search of that database with specific criteria, appropriate memory files are brought to the surface. You feel light-headed and you remember that could mean dehydration. You see a puzzle in an e-magazine you've solved before, and you remember how to beat it. You hear a laugh and remember a friend who had a similar laugh.  
_

 _But sometimes a new memory causes a conflict when your brain tries to file it. Imagine you know what a 'boat' is, and you know what a 'plane' is, but the first time you come across an amphibious aircraft? Your mind wouldn't know which category to file it under. It would have to enable a link between what it thought were previously unrelated categories, right? That's the nice version. But imagine if you're presented a conflict where two things get filed under the same contextual key, but it's absolutely clear that they can't_ _both_ _be whatever that is – so one is wrong._

 _A conflict arises where a new memory confounds the existing filing system – meaning either the new data input, or the previous categorisation of the filing system, is wrong. If the authenticity of the new memory can't be questioned, then in order to resolve the conflict, your mind must assume its filing system isn't authentic - isn't 'true' - and therefore needs corrective editing. That could mean then editing the contextual key values of many other memory files as a result, to re-categorise them all so that they and the new memory, can be assimilated into the database. That's going to take a lot of processing power, and if it's urgent (meaning you can't put it off for a later time), then you have to start shutting down other tasks to make available the necessary processing power._

 _Well Zaeed's got just such a conflict, and right now his mind is trying to sort it out. If he accepts the latest data he's received as valid, it will mean he's got to re-assign contextual keys for all associated memories, which – from what I can gather – includes most of his adult life and some of his childhood._

 _A human mind has a whole lot more essential systems to maintain that it can't turn off compared with your average computer just to keep your body ticking over (feeding yourself is actually quite a complex task, as is personal hygiene). Let's not forget the large number of_ _other __computers that are constantly trying to access its databases and get sensible responses – the people around us._

 _Zaeed's mind probably just went into overdrive. Even asking a person if they want sugar or milk in their coffee is enough of a conundrum to make them shut down, if their mind is under enough strain and stress to have diverted all its processing power to some other problem._

 _Nobody_ _can recall and analyse their entire life's experiences simultaneously, well except maybe Legion – I don't know if the Geth can do that – but_ _Human_ _minds can't. It takes time – even EDI would struggle. If a brain isn't able to divert enough processing power to solve the problem, it can get stuck in a loop, like a programme that won't stop running because it's stuck on a task it can't complete._

 _Sometimes a distraction helps – a new crisis to deal with or something that helps a person put the conflict away for a while. Sometimes a person just needs to hear the words: "You don't have to resolve this all right now, take a break" - so long as they go back at the problem intermittently they'll get through it in the end. Sometimes that means a reboot. Sometimes if completely beyond a person's processing power, it means locking away corrupted files permanently which isn't as easy as it sounds, because you can't easily delete things from a human mind._

 _Either way it's important to realise that everything a person is, is just a pattern built experience by experience, upon a flexible but limited, predetermined genetic and epigenetic framework. From the moment the brain starts working, it starts building associations to make sense of the stimuli it is being asked to process. So a person's personality, their philosophies and the beliefs they live by... The way they speak, the way they move, the way they_ _think..._ _All of_ _who_ _a person is, is built on the passage of circumstantial stimuli and following consequences. Experience accumulates, forming and entrenching the ideas and assumptions that contribute to our interpretation of every passing moment of our lives. That then governs how we react, instinctively and consciously, to the new experiences that come our way._

 _Zaeed may well be questioning the true nature and his interpretation of every moment of his life since he and Vido became friends... Where every incident of 'friendship' he remembers between them, needs re-assessment in light of recent events. That's a_ _lot_ _for a brain to handle. It probably leaves a lot of questions about how he should interpret everything he is experiencing here and now, too, because if all that was false... how does he know what's real now? How can he trust himself to know the difference between truth and deception?_

 _...Have you managed to follow what we've gone over so far?_

Shepard had had to stop and blink at that. Even now, an hour or more later: her head was still spinning. She hadn't had so in-depth a psychological discussion with anyone since she herself went into counselling as a teen following the slaver attack on Mindoir. Funny how even just having the conversation itself had brought an unwelcome sense of awkwardness that she'd had to make effort to sidestep, in order to appreciate how much Kelly was trying to help Zaeed through her.

Kelly knew Zaeed wouldn't listen to her, but that he _might_ listen to Shepard. So she had poured everything she could of her knowledge and wisdom into Shepard's ears. Why? Because the skills Shepard had employed in bringing together a cross-species crew and getting the better of the Illusive Man, suggested to Kelly that Shepard was a better polymath than even Shepard herself realised she was. She had the capability to understand people, even if she'd never studied it directly.

If anyone could take in all of that and put it to good and responsible use, Kelly bet on Shepard... Despite there being other people on board who might look like better options, such as Tali, Miranda and Thane. _Shepard_... was the only one who could go toe to toe with the likes of Zaeed on a  bad day. If there was anyone he _would_ listen to, it was her.

Shepard... meanwhile... felt like she had had (little knowing how right she was to feel that way): a crash course in psychological and sociological sciences. Her mind continued to buzz with everything that Kelly her talked her through. She blinked again now, as she recalled the rest of the conversation:

 _Shepard you have to be_ _careful_ _... People tend to choose one of three doors in a situation like this where they're trying to resolve such a profound conflict of what they knew to be 'true' before, and what seems to be 'true' now. Either they:_

 _\- fault themselves or something about themselves,_

 _\- fault someone or something else, or_

 _\- they find themselves unable to face making any decision about it at all._

Responding then to the blank expression on Shepard's face, Kelly had started then to explain: _Now if we go through each of those individually_ – Shepard had been grateful for the coffee that Chakwas slipped into her hand at that point. The good doctor briefly walked into her  own office to do precisely just that that. _Her_ office - which Shepard and Kelly had temporarily borrowed in order to have their conversation. Chakwas just came and went without a word – clearly this was not the first time she'd seen someone break this way or seen a counsellor called in to talk about it. _There's something special about working on soldiers_... - Chakwas had once said. Shepard wondered now if she meant things like this, if this tragedy were part of what drew her to her place here on the Normandy.

She found herself wishing to god/gods/goddesses/Enkindlers... just about anyone who might listen to her thoughts, that she'd had that conversation with Kelly before she'd gone to see Zaeed in the Hangar Deck. Perhaps she'd have known better what to do...

Instead, she'd had to sit there in Chakwas' office, after having been collected with Zaeed in a state of moderate undress, awkwardly enduring the apparent obviousness of what it was Zaeed and she had been in the middle of doing, of or about to _do_ on the Hammerhead... Sit there sipping still-scolding coffee in an attempt to simulate the effects she wished it would have had, had the mug contained something a little  stiffer... Sit there, like that, meanwhile trying to listen diligently to the entirety of Kelly's finger-drawn explanation which plotted - with taps and lines across a bare patch of Chakwas' desk - the trajectory of her insights. Just... sit there and try not to notice while Chakwas attended to some task or other that happened to conveniently need her attention, _at the furthest end_ of the Medical Bay away from them.

She stared off into the nearest wall and sighed, deeply. _Now... what was that about doors? Oh yes..._

 _... 1: Root cause and blame is assumed to lie within 'self'. This door is appealing to anyone who fears being unable to control their circumstances due to external factors. That's particularly relevant for anyone who's experienced a high level of threat due to circumstances outside of their control. If you can claim responsibility, then the logic flows that at least the cause (and any solutions) will be within your control, and that is less frightening for some people. After that, a person tends towards varying degrees of self-harm_ – Shepard had frowned at that, and Kelly had paused before she continued:

 _Now that can be as subtle as self-sabotage – like not going to a job interview you've been offered, despite really wanting that job – or it can be as extreme as actual self harm or suicidal tendencies..._

Shepard's blood had run cold at that, and colder still now that she recalled those words whilst looking upon the evidence of Zaeeds battered and bruised hands. Observing him from a chair she'd brought over to sit next to him, she let out another long, sigh; head resting on crossed hands. She thought more deeply about the little signs that showed he really did seem to fear not being in control. He certainly seemed to need to be the one leading when it came to sex, didn't he? But there was still more to consider because the next door Kelly explained, also seemed to suit him pretty well:

 _...2: They root the cause of their internal conflict as something external – this could be a person, a place, sometimes even an object or something as abstract as just 'the world'. Whatever it is, whoever it is: punishing them –_ _breaking_ _them, destroying them in some way – can become a compulsive obsession. It's yet another form of 'gaining control' but it's one that requires self confidence and conviction to follow. Door 1 tends to be chosen more often by people who tend towards recognising their own insecurities more than the failures of others. Door 2 is more often chosen by people who tend towards recognising the failures of others more than recognising their own insecurities._

Shepard nodded now as she had then, having added that up well enough already in her own head. That had been his quest for revenge, the one that first brought him to the Normandy _._ It was probably what also kicked off Garrus' little lecture about Zaeed potentially being a loose cannon and potentially about as dangerous. Given that so far these two options – or 'doors' as Kelly liked to refer to them – already framed the context of present circumstances with frightening accuracy and worrying portent, Shepard _had_ wondered how there could possibly be a third. But of course, just when she had thought things couldn't get any worse, they did... With the explanation of a scenario Shepard hadn't even thought to consider:

 _Door no. 3: They can't make up their mind which of the first two doors to take, and ultimately refuse to consider either. At that point a person can completely detach from the real world, falling inwards into whatever reality gives them comfort._

 _Sometimes this takes the form of denial: whatever truth or event triggered the episode, they wind up simply unable to acknowledge. They might even behave as if it hasn't happened. Sometimes instead a person can end up reliving that moment, or some moment in time just prior to it, over and over again – a little like the solipsism that Drell get, except that humans who get it often have physical expressions associated with whatever it is they are reliving._

At that point, Shepard had actually stopped breathing, and Kelly had paused before she continued, placing a hand on Shepard's knee in consolation and biting her lip... worried she'd said too much. Even now as she remembered, Shepard held her breath.

 _They get stuck there because their brain is trying to figure out alternative scenarios and sometimes these manifest as hallucinations that can change day by day, and even evolve over time; weaving ever greater complexity into the experience. Either way they_ _can't_ _face what has happened, and at the greatest extreme they are labelled clinically insane and need to be taken into care._

Shepard stared at Zaeed now as she had stared at Kelly then: with stark terror. Kelly had said that in turmoil people could flit between each of those three scenarios, and Shepard was now utterly uncertain as to which one he'd wake up with let alone which one he'd stick with if he stuck to one at all, let alone how she was going to cope. She had already foreseen and warned herself about number 1, Garrus had warned her about number 2, but she would _never_ have imagined that Zaeed could go the route of Kelly's "door no. 3" - not until today. Yet here he was, laid out comatose in the Medical Bay, and after the way he'd responded to her in the Hangar, anything was possible.

That last one was the killer. Imagining him strapped into a chair, eyes wild, drooling from the corner of his mouth..? She'd heard of vets gone like that... And there was Tabitha. Shepard never forgot _her_. She physically shuddered at the thought of Zaeed like that. She'd sooner put a bullet in his head. _That_ scared her too... That she couldn't handle it, couldn't understand it, couldn't sympathise with it, and frankly would run away as fast as her legs could carry her from it... With her 'humanity' and every oath she'd ever taken about 'looking after those not in a position to look after themselves', in tatters strewn in her wake. The hope that Kelly offered after that, was full of 'buts' and 'maybes':

 _Unfortunately what he_ _really_ _needs to do is not to choose_ _any_ _of these three doors at all, but to work his way through the experience, correctly establishing an understanding of the situation, how it came to pass, and where he stands within it all. You can't control the actions, reactions or reasoning of other people – but you can only control your own. He has to figure that out on his own as much as you need to bear it in mind for yourself: you can't control how he handles it, you can only control how you do._

Shepard thought on those last words from Kelly. 'Not reacting' but instead 'stopping and thinking' about something, was _not_ something Zaeed was good at. He was a fast thinker, he thought on his feet, he reacted with gut instinct and intuition... She couldn't imagine him for a second having a conscious understanding of any of those things. So now she stared, and fretted, and feared... And damn it all if she wasn't also, at the core of it, upset. She cared... That was the biggest shock of all – that she cared, and far deeper than she had ever meant to allow.

 _I_ _want_ _him to be OK..._

 _ **I** want him to be OK._

 _I want..._ _him_ _. Scars and all..._

The 'n' word was too profound, and right now she wanted to be in denial, because to _need_ something you can't assuredly know you'll get, is unbearable. _Huh._ It was what her own counsellor years ago had tried to tell her, wasn't it? She'd always been torn between doors 1 and 2. Door 2 she defaulted to by defence, but when someone or something got through that wall, it was door number 1 all the way. Until she'd adjusted her view of the world around her, and set herself firmly between both doors and refused to budge except where there was evidence to do so... And she made _sure_ that door 1, was an option that _never_ made sense, because she _strived_ to do her best, to be the best at everything she could be in every moment, of every day, ever since.

She's known what she'd do to herself, if there was any doubt in that. If in any way, shape, or form she allowed reason to exist for self-blame.

 _That's how I prevented myself from choosing in the end, didn't I?_ Even so, she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel the tug... The fear of what loosing Zaeed would do to her more deeply - and who she'd blame for that. She caught herself thinking that, and realised from the tears welling in her eyes: she probably already  looked like the mess she felt she was inside. She stretched her jaw, swallowed that sentiment and mentally kicked herself.

 _Idiot. Sentimental fool. Love? I barely know him. But I'm still hell bent on it aren't I? Alright. If I can't walk away there's only one thing left to do, isn't there? So get on with it._

Kelly had lingered in a distant corner of Shepard's vision, working by the light of her omnitool where she did whatever tasks she could do from there... Or simply _pretended_ to be working. Shepard waited for Chakwas to settle at her desk, before she finally plucked up the determination to walk over to Kelly and asked boldly the question she had not, up until this moment, had the courage to ask:

"Is there _anything_ I can do to help?"

Her heart was pounding fit to make her choke when she tried to swallow. Kelly pulled a doubtful expression and a sad smile, which almost brought Shepard's heart to a sudden stop. She shrugged as she answered:

"I'm afraid right now..." - With a glance towards Zaeed: "...it's up to him." Shepard sighed with frustration but Kelly added quickly:

"But when he wakes up, there might be some things that can help. None of this –" Kelly motioned to the galaxy, meaning the things that had put Zaeed into this state, "– is really going to matter when he figures out who he is, what he wants, and therefore doesn't need a reason to just 'be'. In matters of the mind it's always easy to find something worth self-destructing over... but does he have anything worth _living_ for..?"

Kelly met her eyes directly from under furrowed brows. Shepard's heart skipped a beat in that moment as both a fleeting hope and terror for what having that hope meant, flushed over her body. Kelly's face relaxed and returned to one of sorrowful compassion:

" _That's_ the question he needs to be asking himself right now. It's the only thing that makes everything _else_ that has gone on before now, irrelevant. That's what would allow him to come to the conclusion that he doesn't _have_ to resolve it all right now, and can instead do it piece by piece at whatever pace works for him." Kelly looked at Zaeed, with pity and remorse.

"These revelations are something he's going to have to find a way to carry with him, to integrate into being a part of who he is and what he believes in, to accept them and to use them to shape the way in which he moves on... Without just blaming himself, just blaming external factors, or refusing to face the issue. Time can help, but having some reason to allow himself to take his time on figuring that out is just as important. In the end though..." Kelly's face took on a more professional hardness:

"...Only _he_ can decide if he's found what he needs to go on living, in the present and the future, and what kind of person that means he has to be." She gave Shepard a smile, touched her arm just briefly, giving it the slightest squeeze, "I'll be on duty a few more hours but if you need to talk you know where to find me." Her smile broadened with welcoming compassion, " Anytime."

"Thanks." The word strangled itself out of Shepard's throat but the sincerity was there. With that Kelly nodded and left, this time walking out of the Medical Bay entirely. _Has she been waiting this entire time, just for me to ask her that one question..?_ Shepard watched Kelly leave. _I wonder..._

* * *

REFERENCES:

Yes. I think I will forever make nods to one of my most favourite pieces of wisdom from Babylon 5, when Lorien and Sheridan are talking together in the episode 'Whatever happened to Mr. Garibaldi?' – you'll not I paraphrased the following line for advice given by Kelly:

"...When you know _who_ you are, and _why_ you are, and what you _want_ , when you are no longer looking for reasons to live, but can simply...'be'."


	23. Chapter 23 - The Fragile

~ Finding The Heart ~

The Fragile

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Kelly headed off to the Command Deck, now that the question she'd been waiting for all afternoon, had finally been asked, and now that she had provided the advice that she'd been waiting to give. It hadn't been advice she could just come out and tell Shepard as a general prescription. That would have been too presumptuous of Shepard's feelings for Zaeed, and she was sure Shepard would not have appreciated that, even on a good day. More than that, only _Shepard_ could decide if she cared enough for Zaeed to offer herself up as his basis for truth and stability, to be his anchor point and potentially... his reason for living. After all... Under normal circumstances, such a relationship progression would be an unhealthy 'less than ideal'.

Having been so independent a person all his life only to realise (in a way) that really the opposite had been true: where everything he was, and everything he'd ever done, had unknowingly depended on the wanton wishful manipulation of a 'friend' who never had Zaeed's best interests at heart... Zaeed would struggle. Desperate to know who to trust, not knowing whether or not to trust even himself... He would need that for a while – at least until he found his feet again and worked out who he was, and what he wanted in life, and didn't need anyone else as a crutch for his existence. There was no guarantee he could even do that, or that he wouldn't reject the help he needed out of fear and the same uncertainty, and Kelly worried for the pain Shepard could endure if that ended up being the case.

Helping the shell of a person put themselves back together again might be just about as demanding as saving the galaxy – or so Kelly reckoned. Shepard was already doing one of those things, this could double her workload. She could _almost_ hear... the poisonous words of the Illusive Man, had she come to him as once she _should_ have done, about Shepard's relationship:

 _Encourage her to break it off. We'll sign Zaeed into care, then dispatch him in an accident. We can't afford for Shepard to get distracted at this point._

\- The heartless manipulative bastard. So she had tried instead to be a good friend to Shepard, to treat her like her training told her to, not what her former employers would have had her do. Shepard had to decide for herself if she saw value in Zaeed enough to take the risk, if she valued what they had together enough to fight this hard for it. Kelly, who's come to see the woman behind the god, understood right from the start the burdens she bore that might compel Shepard to dismiss her own wants and needs, but call it rebellion against The Illusive Man, call it her humanity, call it what you will: Kelly didn't think the galaxy worth saving... Not if saving it required the person who saved it to give up everything.

Shepard had a _right_ to seek a happy life as much as anyone, and she probably deserved it a lot more than most. The Illusive Man wouldn't be the only person who for sake of the 'bigger picture' would encourage Shepard to give that up to achieve the goals that _he_ would ultimately benefit from... Whilst maintaining a relatively nice, safe, distance. Still more people might, knowing Shepard herself was willing and tempted to lean that way herself anyway, turn the other cheek as she followed through and abandoned herself. That included her closest friends.

So Kelly had decided: _she_ would be Shepard's advocate. The one voice who told her to be selfish. The arrival at that decision began when she first met Shepard; it was final the moment she emerged from that Collector pod to see an anxious Shepard catching Helen in her arms. Kelly had seen the way Shepard looked at Zaeed when she thought no-one was watching, and she knew Shepard was trying desperately hard to hide how much he meant to her, hiding it even from herself. She wanted him. That much was clear... But Kelly had _also_ seen the way _he_ looked at _her..._ Again only when he thought nobody could see him – including Shepard.

In Zaeed, Kelly saw a mechanism for supporting Shepard that she had never (herself) been given the opportunity to offer. She hoped... _hoped_... Zaeed wouldn't screw that up. She hoped that at the end of this episode, Zaeed would bring Shepard the joy she much deserved that she had not, in Kelly's knowledge, ever previously had. It was the least Shepard deserved. Of that she was adamant, and in her guilt Kelly hoped that if that came to pass, then it would be a step towards her own redemption – a step towards forgiving herself of all the things she had done behind Shepard's back, before the Collectors came.

Truth was: she struggled to live with that guilt every day. Counsellors were supposed to have counsellors but hers had been set up within Cerberus, so she'd had none of their support since the abduction. Not since she had seen with her _own_ eyes, who the Illusive Man had been encouraging her to spy upon, and the darker side to the organisation. She had broken from that support mechanism the _moment_ she had realised that even the Alliance recruitment posters, didn't do the legend justice. That had, however, taken its toll: she was alone now, and nobody could counsel _her._

There were things she couldn't explain to anyone else on the Normandy without first having a day to explain the basis for them - the psychological mechanisms she knew to be in play in her own thoughts and actions. There were also the things that nobody but a fellow crew member might ever understand - thanks to the Collectors. They all... tried to counsel each other... But... Kelly struggled to find comfort maybe more than most. _She_ understood what she was going through, _as_ she was going through it, but there was nobody else who could do that. They were all of them still raw, but the others were, to an extent: blissfully oblivious to the depths of which it would be affecting them.

Kasumi was _her_ lifeline.

Kasumi would ask about it whenever she suspected Kelly was troubled. She wouldn't let up until they talked about it. Kasumi was smarter on psychology material than anyone else onboard. Or maybe she'd just experienced the darker side of imprisonment. Either way, she was who Kelly went to. Academically, Mordin and Miranda were probably far superior, but what they lacked was the one thing _counsellors_ knew better the need for: a good 'bedside manner' – the need to give sympathy and comfort, to listen - even in the silent spaces between words.

Kasumi offered sympathy, she offered laughter; and while she didn't offer the distraction of intimacy, she offered sisterhood. Many a night Kelly had spent with her head propped up on a small cushion in Kasumi's lap, Kasumi idly stroking her hair behind her ears with one hand; eating popcorn with the other... Passing the time together with one of those ridiculous black-and-white Japanese monster movies Kasumi apparently had a taste for.

 _It's the amazingly realistic special effects... –_ Kasumi had first explained, totally deadpan.

Then they actually started watching and Kelly began to suspect she'd been had. Kasumi continued to play the straight face though, looking so eager and enraptured with wonder that Kelly second guessed... Until in one particularly obvious scene involving clearly papier-mâché rocks knocking a man unconscious, Kasumi cracked her cool and both of them hitherto burst into hysterics. It was a brief reprieve, but a welcome one... Even if it did only last until the next morning.

She could see the trauma in her own face in the mirror at the start of every day. No matter how any of them tried to hide it, there was now a wariness that all those who'd seen the belly of the Collector ship, carried in their expressions. The nightmares of the Collector ship haunted Kelly night and day, and given all her knowledge of psychology, she knew she may well never be healthily free of them. Having that _and_ the awful knowledge of her own previous treachery towards the very person who then became her personal saviour, was almost too much to bear...

But Kasumi helped.

And this helped – helping _Shepard_... helped.

It was all she had left really, to give her _own_ life meaning.

* * *

REFERENCES:

Title reference: The song 'The Fragile' by Nine Inch Nails from the album 'The Fragile'. I may as well say 'just that whole album' because most of the songs on the album contributed to my inspiration for this story in one way or another.

If you've played ME3, you'll understand why I've given Kelly the time I have, especially if you are kind (and not cruel to be kind because you don't know to be) and saw the play of events that unfolded after you meet her again. I just... wanted to do her a little justice.


	24. Chapter 24 - The Wretched

~ Finding The Heart ~

The Wretched

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

Shepard sighed, and suddenly realised the skill with which she had just been _handled._ A wave of deep admiration washed over her for how good Kelly really was at her 'job'...

 _It's up to me to decide if I want to take on the role of the things she said Zaeed needed, I guess, as much as it is Zaeed's choice to take the role of getting himself out of this mess. That's what she was trying to tell me. We each have to_ _choose_ _what we want, and what we're willing to put in for it, walking away if the other person involved doesn't feel the same._

She took a deep breath and let it go, along with any doubts she'd had. She could trace that choice all the way back to that first conversation with him in her quarters if she really wanted to: She knew what her heart had chosen, long before it was ever asked to choose, if she was honest about it. _So. Nothing left but to get on with it - for better or worse._ Resolute in that decision she walked over to Zaeed, lifted his hand, and gently held it with both of hers; mindful of his cuts and bruises.

 _Well Zaeed. Looks like it's time to call your bluff: I'm all in, if you are._

He flinched; Shepard jumped out of her skin. She had to double check if she'd said that out loud instead of only thinking it as she thought she had. His eyes still closed, he moved to lift his head... which then quickly thudded back down on the pillow with a squinting grimace.

"Urrghhhhhhh..." He grumbled.

"That's exhaustion plus a sedative you're feeling. Quite the hangover." Shepard joked. "Gave us quite the scare, you did." She patted his arm with a disapproving smile and asked: "How are you feeling?"

He stared at her, wincing first from the physical discomfort, then from a flush of emotion, but he quickly put _that_ away. Shepard's smile took on a touch of pain in empathy, as she tenderly brushed his forehead, stroking her fingertips through his hair and back over his head.

Lifting his head to frown at her, he froze: "Who's 'we'..?"- he asked, gruffly, eyes and nostrils flaring.

"The usual people:" Shepard shrugged. "- You passed out."

He disconnected his eyes from hers, thudding his head back into the pillow again to stare at the ceiling and frowned awhile. He knew where he was. Of course he did. _Everyone_ in the squad knew the pattern of the ceiling tiles and bulkheads in this room well enough to know instinctively by now whenever they wound up in the Medical Bay.

"Am I free to go?" He asked, blankly.

 _Don't pity_ – Shepard told herself sternly. "Chakwas thinks so. She bandaged up your hands with a fresh round of medigel. Says to leave those bandages on long as you can, but the medigel should have sealed itself by now. You might feel a little sore though." _Or a little raw._.. she thought to herself, regards what had really put him here. He lifted his hands, turning them over while he strained to lift his head enough to see.

"...Right." He said as he sat up, swinging his legs to the side of the bed. He caught himself with both arms on the edge when that quick movement brought on a little dizziness. He should have known better. He sniffed, catching a whiff of himself – the stench of stale sweat drenching his skin and clothes (and half the Medical Bay) – and cringed. Puffing the air from his nostrils impatiently he remarked:

"I need a bloody shower."

Shepard wanted to _hug_ him for that 'so like himself' statement, but it wasn't the Zaeed who'd passed out in the Loading bay who was in front of her now, so (ironically) that just wouldn't do. No. Not the way to handle _this_ one. It was the colder, calmer, withdrawn Zaeed who needed space that sat in front of her now. She restrained herself, nodded and smiled humorously:

"I think Chakwas said she's going to wash down Medical Bay with disinfectant after you leave. So yeah. Shower would be a smart move." - She winked.

It was a joke. He humoured her with half a laugh, but the smile quickly faded. She gave him a moment as he stood up, ready to catch him if he turned unsteady (which he didn't), then said:

"I'll be in my quarters."

She didn't add: _If you want to talk._ Instead she risked placing a hand on his elbow; a brief offer of reassurance. At least he didn't flinch at that. She walked him to the lift and punched the button to her quarters; he punched the button for Engineering deck. Gingerly standing side by side, she reached tentative fingers for his hand when the doors closed and the lift began to move, quietly slipping them into his palm. His face ticked with emotion for a moment – his eyes watered and he squeezed her fingers, but he stared straight ahead. Nevertheless, she was glad.

Eventually she met eyes with him. "You're welcome to use my shower if you like. You don't have to stay... I'd miss you, but I would understand." – spoken softly, so that he'd know sympathy was also on offer if he wanted it. He gulped then, as if sending down some huge bite of a bitter fruit. The colour drained from his face and his expression momentarily took on aspects of fear and worry, quickly fading to 'sober concern'.

"Thanks." His voice but a growly whisper. She guessed he'd scared _himself_ too then, at least as much as he'd scared her. The more vindictive side of her humorously shouted _'Good!'_ at that – an eye for an eye in that respect – but she kept such commentary to herself. Zaeed sucked his cheeks and added after a pause:

"Might just do that." - with a lift of his chin and a jut of his jaw.

They rode the lift up to her quarters (her instructions followed first) and Shepard smiled the first genuine smile she'd smiled since the chase for Vido began. She let go of his hand as she walked out of the lift and the door shut between them and didn't look back. With Zaeed gone from her sight, she pressed the panel for her cabin, heavy feet finding their way to her bed where she ass-planted herself with a soft thud. She propped her elbows on her knees and slapped her face into her palms as she tried to rub away the memories of events, past and present.

 _At least I can hope._ She sighed. _Hope that he's going to be alright._ Then, looking around her quarters the logical side of her asked: _And what about yourself?_ – To which she collapsed her head into her hands once more. Her mind flashes through the things that had happened... and _Solem Dal'Serah_ screams as he falls to his death just one more time before she sets that thought aside.

She was surprised when the door chimed so soon. Zaeed's footsteps followed her reply to EDI's prompt to let him in. _How long was I sat here?!_ She wondered. He'd brought a change of clothes. She said nothing, only nodded in his general direction, picked up a datapad and attempted to busy herself... with paperwork she never going to be able to concentrate on to do anything useful with in her present state of mind – her 'working' was primarily just for show.

He showered. The drier cycled. She tried not to look up to see if he was staying or leaving. She heard the pause in his movements that told her that _he_ wasn't sure about that either. Her eyes hung on a word on the pad, unable to read any further as she listened, her finger hovering over the scroll symbol. There was the lurching sound of weight being shifted between deck plates – a decision being made – then the soft sound of material things being deposited on a hard surface. Footsteps rounded the model display. She looked up, meeting his troubled expression with a worried one of her own.

He was hesitant in his steps before he eventually settled, collapsing ass-first into the couch, much as she had done onto the bed some half-hour or so earlier. Zaeed propped up his forehead with crossed fingers, elbows resting on his knees. Shepard waited a little while, silent and still, just in case he was going to speak. In the absence of words she rose to her feet, placing the datapad down at the nearest edge of the coffee table, and slowly brought herself to sit on the opposite side of it, positioned in front of him. She placed a hand on his knee, not knowing anything to say, other than what she could offer with that gesture. She waited for the longest time, before finally he spoke. Air hissed from his nostrils in a gust before he rumbled, quietly:

"Everything..." He started as he stared off at the floor elsewhere, "My entire _life_..." another deep sigh and a shrug: "Not a bloody thing of it... was  real." Shepard squeezed his knee, gently, in acknowledgement. Zaeed frowned all the harder.

"Everything I was, everything I ever did..." - Another shrug, "Just things Vido goddamned wanted me to be, things he thought I fucking _owed_ him, I guess. Crawling in my skin like some goddamn parasite: just controlling me, manipulating me. Even when I was stark raving mad with him, hunting him down like a bloody animal and trying to  kill the son-of-a-bitch... Really it was what the bastard _wanted."_

Shepard took a breath and nodded soberly. "He was pretty damn fucked-up in the head."

"Yeah and he fucked me up and fucked me over for more than _thirty years_. Fucking irony is the bastard didn't betray me when he tried to _kill_ me. Huh.  That was probably the first time the son-of-a-bitch actually did something honest in the whole of our goddamned friendship." Zaeed shook his head as he grew agitated.

"I can't believe my own stupidity... How long I thought my own best mate betrayed me, but I missed a step didn't I? I never _had_ a fucking friend in the first place. He saw me as nothing but a tool right from the bloody start – some possession to base an obsession on. And I went along with it. I _trusted_ him..." Zaeed's eyes widened as he gripped his hands into fists and nigh shook with anger. "...Right up until he tried to _kill me_... I thought we were friends. The  whole... fucking... time..!"

Shepard could almost _see_ in this moment, how he'd gotten into the state that had landed him in the Medical Bay. She could see how he might fall inwards – lose himself in what had been – brain in overload and unable to find anything it didn't then question. But she had to know:

"If you'd have known his feelings, would anything have been different?"

"The shit you asking me that for? How the Hell would I know?! We were mates. Nothing more. He never fucking gave me another option." - Zaeed barked. Evidently that was not a question he'd really dwelled upon - an answer in and of itself Shepard supposed, and breathed a secret sigh of relief.

 _...Because one dead lover who meant something is more than enough. One dead lover that meant something, murdered by a should-have-been lover who could have meant at least as much, would've made this relationship maybe just a little too crowded... And I'm no fan of Greek tragedies._

"I dunno... I mean... Maybe..?" - Zaeed frowned, and Shepard's heart skipped a beat. "But... Bollocks. He'd still have been the same old Vido. Even _I_ have standards Shepard, and he'd never've bloody met 'em. He could sweet talk the tail off a donkey but he sure as shit rains had a darker side. I just never knew _how_ fucking dark it was, until now..."

Another sigh of relief and Shepard lifted her hand from his knee. She sympathetically rubbed his elbow as she leaned in, trying to draw his attention back to here and now.

"He did what he did because he couldn't face or handle rejection." She spoke calmly and 'matter of fact'. "He was a coward, Zaeed. He looked up at you and saw the things he couldn't be and all the things he wanted but was too afraid to try for. But he wasn't necessarily _born_ that way. That's the real tragedy."

"Yeah well I wasn't born a fucking brutal bloodthirsty bastard was I? Yet here I am. He fucking _made_ me who I am, moulded out of his own goddamned twisted image..." - He snapped back, fast and bitter.

Shepard sighed. "You're thinking about how he made you, but who made _him?"_

A moment's hesitation before answering: "...His goddamned fucked up archaic arse-over-tits bloody retarded family – that's who."

Shepard nodded: "From everything you've told me, that's the impression I get. He could never escape the way they made him feel about himself. If it hadn't been for them, who knows how he'd have used his skills for manipulation or..." Shepard shook her head -

 _What was that term that Garrus once used? The one for 'the application of the skill to manipulate others when done for a good and honourable purpose'..._

"...'Tarmal-keen' ... as the Turians call it. He could've been a great entrepreneur, hell maybe even a counsellor? Who are we to know?!" Zaeed look at her with absolute scepticism, but she continued: "Look, I know that's no excuse – I'll never have forgiven him for the things he did to you or Alice, or Vladimir and Uhuru – but it does _explain_ what he did. And you..." – She ventured, " _You_ were a gentle soul at heart.  He was the one who made you what you are, sure, but that doesn't take away from what you were born to be, who you are deep down. He couldn't touch that. You're not just what he made you."

Zaeed scoffed. "'Gentle soul' – don't make me laugh. And what am I now then? Huh?! What the Hell am I... now?" He looked at her, hostile and fuming. "A wretched, broken, burned-out mercenary with more blood on his hands than he can fucking swim in. Vido **made** me what I am but I still fucking went along with it. 'Gentle soul'?!" He spat, letting go a slow, harsh laugh and rolled his head backwards: "'Gentle soul' - my _arse!_ Pull the other one! Vido might've been calling the shots, but I fucking _liked_ that life Shepard. I _liked_ it."

Shepard's face grew grim when she took on her 'commander' tone: "You really want me to agree with that? Fine. I'll tell you the same thing I'd say to him if he were alive and I were being brutal about it: That other people make you what you are but in the end that's no excuse, because there comes a point where you must still _choose_ your actions, and which influences you _want_ to listen to. Yes: you've got to _live_ with that. Tough. Shit." She could see the way his anger rose to that, but she softened her voice and added before he could interrupt:

"Even so..." - she drew another breath with a raised hand, and tried to be patient. It would have stung, so she waited a moment to let what she'd already said settle in before making her point: "... _You_ of all people should know by now that most people cling to what they know. Even when it's bad for them, the familiarity comforts them." Shepard shook her head. "And the things you've done? Those were just the ways by which you _survived_ , and the galaxy isn't so sweet and fair that I can simply assume that you'd still be alive today if you'd tried to do it any differently. The person you became is the one who kept you alive – Vido was good for that much at least."

Shepard shrugged: "I'm guessing neither one of you had a decent start in life. It's the culture of trauma – you learn to use it as a tool, and when it's dog-eat-dog it's either you or someone else that's gonna get eaten. You can't blame a kid for turning to crime when _not_ being a criminal leaves you with so minimal an existence as in the end to be  not worth living... When _not_ being a criminal lines you up ready to be a victim... to those who _are_."

"You bloody wouldn't though would you? Be fucking honest about it." He scoffed, despite her indignation. "And you don't have a goddamned _clue_." He snarled, spitting his consonants venomously. "You _don't_ fucking know me. You don't know the stuff I didn't have to do but did anyway. You don't know..." Again his eyes glazed over, "...the things I've _done..."_

 _...Things so fucking dark I don't think you'd ever forgive if you knew..._

He would have told her them all, right there and then. Almost did. _She_ almost asked... But when his eyes did not meet hers and she saw the shame, she pitied him. Clearly he was mentally checking every decision and asking himself: if he were back then the person he was now, would he still have made those calls? Would he still have made them, if not for Vido? Perhaps there was some part of him with which those choices did not sit easily anymore, or in fact never did sit well with, right from the very beginning. She had to wonder, but the man in front of her didn't deserve the burden of those things, let alone to have to say them aloud. His present turmoil alone was painful enough to watch.

Shepard shrugged, pragmatism taking over whenever she was stressed. She quickly she tried to imagine how _she_ could have responded to different pressures if her life had started out differently. The more she thought about it, the more she considered how her natural skills would have complemented the strategies she would have used. She could almost see it... Like different play-throughs in a computer game: Start the same character with a different origin story to see how the story plays out, and what would be different about the choices they made, or different about even the range of choices they had open to them...

"...I could have been born on the streets of some great Earth city," She tried to imagine. "...Abandoned and abused. I would have done whatever I had to, to survive. I'd have been ruthless, because that's what my survival would have required and I know if push came to shove, I could be that – I was born with that capacity. I'd be more like you then, than you can possibly imagine."

Zaeed looked at her sceptically but she took on the darkness of the persona she imagined she _could_ have become as she smiled darkly. It was how she solved many a problem: method acting. She only had to be careful that in understanding the abyss when she stared into it, the abyss did not find an understanding with which to wield _her..._ as _it_ stared _back._

"I know myself well enough to realise my own capacities. What you see me do," She snarled, "is never all that I'm capable of. People like you and me? We have the internal strength to assert _our_ opinions and ideas, over those of other people. It's what makes us good leaders. It's also what makes us damned dangerous. We are born with the capacity to influence others, but _how_ we use that strength and whether we do good things or bad things with it, depends on _who_ we are – and _that's_ what's circumstantial."

Assertively and calmly she tilted her head as she slid smoothly into another scenario: "I could've been born to the Alliance, a sweet start and a sure-feeling destiny, never knowing hardship but for what I got _myself_ into, 'in it for the cause'. A goody-two-shoes with the arrogance that kind of privilege brings." She gave him the face of that could-have-been version of herself, before returning back to the solid version of herself that she had truly become: "But that wasn't the life _I_ started with. I was born on _Mindoir_ – a farmer's daughter until everyone I knew ended up dead or worse from slavers. _Who_ I am, evolved from that starting point."

She smiled a little in the assertion: "My journey – even my starting point – could well have been very different, but I assure you: the destination would have been the same. I may well have become what I am today, even if what I did with it might have varied."

Zaeed sniggered: "For all you know you could have been a bloody farmer, or a commercial pilot, or a god damn litter-picker on the Presidium."

" _No._ That might have been a possibility, but it definitely wasn't a likely one. There are limits to what I could have become and a lot of resistance that environmental influences would have to have overcome in order to break that potential – to widen it, or constrict it. But you're right in so much that even _within_ those limits, I could still have been a whole variety of different 'me's. So you see it doesn't matter where I started, or what happened to me along the way, I know where and what I am right  now, and I pay particular attention to the things about that which I like and don't like."

"It's not just where we start, it's not just our target end-point, and it's not just the means or route we take to get there that matter either: it's the whole shebang. That leaves a lot of room for reconsideration, for change, and for acceptance. I _choose_ to be the personality mix I am right now. I _choose_ to use the skills I know I have, to do whatever _I_ decide needs doing."

Zaeed shook his head disparagingly – he never was one for philosophy and truth is she half-way lost him through that explanation, not least because other thoughts plagued him and presently ran circles in his head.

"Vido took _everything_ I ever could've been and threw it out of the goddamn airlock. What I'm left with is a life that was a  goddamned lie. I'm Vido's personal goddamned creation! There's no part of me he didn't poison or bleed dry! THERE IS NOTHING OF _'ME'_ ...  LEFT!"

* * *

REFERENCES:

Title reference and when Zaeed calls himself 'wretched', I was remembering the song 'The Wretched' by Nine Inch Nails from the album 'The Fragile'. Honestly from the lyrics I can't decide whether it matches Vido's sentiments towards Zaeed, or Zaeed's sentiments towards Vido in the end. "And now you're one of us – the Wretched" seems like something Vido might think, but "It didn't turn out the way you wanted it, did it?" could just as easily end up being how Zaeed felt after Vido's attempt on his life. Can't also help but wonder if that's how Shepard sees herself on bad days, too.

Again "things I've done" is a reference to the Linkin Park song 'What I've Done' from 'Minutes To Midnight'.

Shepard's mentioning of 'the abyss' that may wield her is my interpretation of a very valid criticism that was made by Friedrich Nietzsche:

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

I interpret the warning as being a very valid one. What _I_ like to consider being the wider applications of 'method acting' is that in order to truly understand something, you must become it – whether that's someone else's actions and limitations. Enemy, stranger, friend, criminal, kin or self... To know how best to reason with, or how to overcome with sound strategy, you must first know and understand the thing you wish to change. Then, as Mahatma Gandhi is famed to have said, you must 'be the change you want to see'. However, that last part sometimes gets lost, or gets shortened in the complexities of the stages preceding it, to 'be [what] you see.' Therein lies the danger.

Hopefully you caught the 'crawling in my skin' reference to the Linkin Park song 'Crawling' from their albums 'Hybrid Theory' and 'Reanimation' (I love both versions). Another of theirs is referenced again...

Lift music if they had any: "That I would be good" by Alanis Morisette from 'Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie'. Also applies to Kelly, for how much she tries. Forgot to mention that earlier I think.


	25. Chapter 25 - Parallel And Compliment

~ Finding The Heart ~

Parallel And Compliment

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please! Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

"...THERE IS NOTHING OF _'ME'_ ...  LEFT!"

\- Zaeed roared, the veins standing out on his face as it turned beet-red before he buried his head in his hands. Shepard, who consistently found that her only response to aggression in any given situation was to assert _her_ authority on the matter, heard herself yelling back. Although to her credit, at least hers was a _controlled_ outburst: to remind him only that she _could_ yell, just as loudly as he could when she wanted to.

"YOU'RE NOT _LISTENING_ TO ME." She gritted her teeth. Softer then: "You're still you, Zaeed! You're still  you!" She shook at his shoulders with both hands. "You're still the same goddamn unyielding, get-things-done wily son-of-a-bitch I met on Omega! Except _now_ you can use what you are and do what you like with it. You want to go bring down the Council in a hail of bullets or an orchestrated campaign of terror?" She pulled a nonchalant expression and shrugged: "I figure if anyone could pull that off, might be you, although you'd probably have to get through me _first_. Hell maybe you want to go teach military strategy at Grissom Academy?" She shook her head. "Might have some trouble getting you in there, but I reckon you'd be a fucking formidable teacher – no discipline issues in _your_ classes."

She poked him sharply in the chest so that he would finally raise his eyes to hers, albeit only to glare back at her.

"Not having Vido around just means you get to use the skills that made you capable of being who you've _been_ , for purposes that you can _now_ decide for  yourself. You're free now, to make that whatever you want it to be." - The flicker of hope came and went in his eyes, then he almost choked, laughing at the irony.

"Oh." He said, cheerfully. "- Free. End of my life and I get to do what I want with it eh? Goddamn fucking fantastic." He grinned sarcastically – it wasn't a friendly grin – as he stretched to put his arms behind his head. Clenching and unclenching his fists as he brought them down again hard on his knees, he grunted: "My whole fucking life... was a waste of time."

"No it wasn't." Shepard frowned and shook her head.

"Nothing in it was real!" He frowned back.

" **No!** Some of it  was real!" She yelled. " She grabbed his hands and forcibly held them in hers. She purposefully squeezed until he winced, although he still looked away. Then she let go one hand and reached for his face. Gently she placed her fingertips against the skin on the un-scarred side for comfort as his eyes turned a brief glance toward her of wary anger before looking away. She leaned towards him and quietly told him:

"There are some things... that were real." She stared at him until he met her gaze. His eyes watered. She pleaded with her own, but then her mind sought diversion from what she truly wanted to say...

"... Alice..." Her eyes flickered as she blinked, losing her nerve. "...Alice was real. And Uhuru is real. After this I think she might just _appreciate_ an uncle who looks out for her. If nothing else, think of that. She is safe now, because of  you!"

"She was only ever in **danger** because of  me!" He growled, "They hurt Alice to get to _me!"_ He broke away from her and shook his head violently. "Everything I touch, I break!" He stabbed his eye sockets with the base of his palms and clawed at his own forehead with his fingernails until the marks stood out red on his skin.

"Not everything." – Quietly. Shepard calmly reached for his hands again, yanking them back down and his head part-way with them. He looked at her. In his eyes she saw fear... But she also found... her courage.

She squeezed his hands again. "You can't break someone who's already been broken." - She heard the words she had intended only to hear herself think, and cringed. _Wait – that's not what I wanted to say... Where the hell did that come from?!_

She swallowed against the bitterness of having admitted that she felt that way about herself, surprised and confused that it had came out at all. Those last words he'd spoken... Something about them had triggered something. Her mouth seemed then to have a mind of its own – hardwired to her innermost thoughts, bypassing every safety net she'd ever built to stop herself from dwelling on such things.

"I'm about as broken as a person can be Zaeed... and yet still be functional." She shrugged, pulled in a juddering breath and let it go with a lackadaisical smile; quickly turned solemn. She had to look away, but knew she had no choice now but to be frank. She had nothing left to lose: She'd already opened the can of worms.

"I already died once. I'm sure I'll do it again someday, and I don't know how many years are left for this body that Cerberus rebuilt – might well be no more than you have, in an ideal scenario." She shrugged a painful laugh as her eyes watered, determined to meet his:

"I'm a fucking prototype Zaeed, built from my own bits and pieces. If the Reapers don't get me, gods know how long these implants will last."

She realised then that he was listening keenly now. _So. He_ _really_ _doesn't know, then. _ The thought occurred to her as it occasionally did, that not a lot of people knew about the Lazarus Project, and that whenever she said 'I died', people just imagined she was dead for a few hours, or frozen near death or something... somehow resuscitated later. They imagined her off on top-secret missions, successfully managing to navigate the galaxy for nearly two years without anyone figuring out that she was still alive in the meantime. Precious few knew how wrong those assumptions truly were. Funny now in retrospect that Vido had actually been one of the few who knew how truly dead she'd been.

"Truth is you may not know this:" Her eyes flickered as those thoughts somehow found audible expression, the discomfort of letting them out, painted across her face. "...But I was dead \- _properly_ dead... for a year or more. 'Meat and tubes'. That's what Jacob said. 'Nothing but meat and tubes.'" She shook her head and looked down at her own body, gesturing with a shrug: "...Everything you see in front of you now, is part-synthetic."

She laughed to say these words at last to somebody: "I'm a reanimated corpse..!" with a feigned zombie impression.

Tears began to spill from her eyes, but she chuckled masochistically at them; dark humour. _I should have told him this right from the beginning..._ She swallowed, and was aware that Zaeed was suddenly sitting very, very still.

"Miranda ran the project." She nodded, and sped through what she knew. "God knows what they did to me, but they brought me back to life. _Supposedly_ all intact. And no control implants," She tapped her temple. "...So Miranda swears, anyway." She shrugged. "I have no idea how long I have to live."

Zaeed flinched, his eyes widened as he frowned, and his mouth gaped in absolute shock – and there was _almost_ pity. That hurt. Despite the disgust she held for herself in that moment, she cast it all aside in one last ditch attempt at bravado:

"But I'll make you a deal..." Shepard looked into Zaeed's eyes with the legendary conviction for which she was best known: "If you can climb your way out of this, if you can decide _who_ you are and what you _want_ , and if you still want... _this_..." She squeezed his hand, "Then I _choose_ to spend whatever time I _do_ have left, kicking ass and taking names with you _at my side_ or _in my bed_."

\- She had managed an unbroken stare into his eyes as she had said that, and inwardly patted herself on the back for that small triumph. First time ever in her life she'd actually had 'a way with words', but then in the same instant: she faltered. Biting her lip, her shoulders slouched; not wanting to know his reaction. She stared off into the couch, her strength all but completely spent.

Zaeed was lost for words, for once. It hit him like a tonne of canisters: this revelation. It never occurred to him that this 'fit young thing' he'd been shagging for the better part of the last three months might have a life expectancy shorter than his own. So used lying about his own age as he had he become, he was used to just expecting less of himself than everyone else did because of it. All that time he'd been thinking:

' _What can_ _I_ _give 'er? A house with a pretty garden, kids and a lifetime of marriage?! Not me. Not with_ _me_ _. She could have that with someone else, but not with me. Galaxy's golden girl'd never be bloody safe enough to have those things with_ _me_ _. And how long for? How many years before dementia or some shitty medical condition sets in and bites me in the backside? Then where'd she be?'_

He'd had other thoughts every now and then over the course of their time together, like _'I like nurses as much as the next man, but I wouldn't want my wife to be mine...'_ and so forth. It never bloody occurred to him that her body might start to break down and fall apart before his did. Why the hell _would_ it?! 'Stunned _'_ wasn't quite enough to describe it. Downright fucking 'shell-shocked' might.

He thought about asking why she didn't tell him before, but realised that was a bloody stupid question before he asked it. He thought about asking for more details, but he knew _that_ was a bloody stupid question too – it sounded like nobody had any answers anyway. _Prototype._ He thought about everything she'd said. He thought about his own life in context, thought about his 'talents', thought about what he could use them for. Decided she was crazy. But sometimes crazy gets the job done. He should know.

So then he decided – in that moment – that he wanted his life to count for something, at the end of it all. Not to anyone else... He didn't give a _damn_ what anyone else thought his life was worth. He just wanted it to count for something... _in_ _her_ _eyes._ He'd flirted with that notion before, but compared to now that was just the daydreaming of a dull old fart who'd lost his way trying to admit it. I guess you could say it was more than just wanting that... It was need: he needed more than just to tag along with her in _her_ life. He _needed_ her in his, to become so core a part of it so that one day, he'd feel as if they'd never not been together. That's what he wanted. _No... It's about time I damn well fucking admit it: I need her. _

_Never was any fucking good with words..._

He reached for her, pulled her forwards and kissed her deeply, with all the energy he thought (up until that moment) he'd already spent. Slowing the pace of the kiss he pulled away and nudged his forehead against hers. Her lips less than an inch away from his, he waited for her eyes to open and meet his before asking, gruffly:

"That do you for an answer?" as he breathed hard through his nose, almost panting from the adrenaline now coursing through his veins.

Shepard smiled a tired, grateful smile. "It'll do." – and stared deeply awhile into his dichromatic eyes of white and emerald, relieved... Just so very relieved.

She stroked her fingers down the scarred side of his face and this time: he didn't flinch in the slightest. She kissed him, and threw all her passion behind it as he embraced her. He fumbled forwards off the couch, knees smacking down between hers as she sat on the edge of the coffee table. He pulled her arse towards him. Propping one hand on the coffee table, he pressed his body against hers with delirious need that Shepard reciprocated. He was desperately trying to undo her tunic when-

"God DAMN it!" - He swore and began pulling off the irritating waterproofed bandages that were making his dexterity worse than it already was with hands coated in two layers of medigel and after too many hours to count beating a punch bag.

Shepard tried to intervene: "Hey Chakwas said you should leave them on for at least-"

"-I don't fucking _care_ they're comin' off." – Zaeed, breathlessly adamant.

Shepard sighed: "Allow _me_." - cupping his chin in her hand she got his attention.

She took his battered hands and unravelled them gently. With slow deliberation, she placed the heap of bandages down on the table, turned to face him, and then placed his hands either side of her hips. She began to unbutton her tunic. He watched lustfully after her fingers. She took her time – not coyly, just... sentimentally slow. Pressing her chest up against his purposefully, she shrugged it off her shoulders. All the while, she kept her head not more than an inch from his. She looked into his eyes as she set her tunic aside. He was breathing hard.

She pulled her shirt out from her trousers quickly enough and undid her cuffs, the rest of her shirt followed. Bare skin exposed: even now she _still_ didn't recognise her own skin – there were scars that should have been there, there no longer. Recent conversation fresh in her mind, she couldn't help but flinch, but Zaeed moved his hands from her hips to snug under her shirt around her waist and pulled her close. Fingers of one hand slid up her spine as fingers of the other groped after her behind. He assaulted her neck with hungry teeth, consciously or unconsciously answering her unspoken question:

 _You're real to_ _me_ _._

Her hands ran through his hair and over his face until he allowed her to remove her shirt, begging then with his thumbs for her to undo her pants. _She_ pulled at his clean vest with clawed fingers in counter-request, paddy-pawing at the muscles there as she playfully ran her thumbs over his nipples, chortling a little at their pertness. Each then quickly set to fulfilling the other's request, and they both abandoned any attempt to slow things down: standing up to undress in desperate haste.

The moment they were done, immediately his hands went to groping her rear as he backed her towards the bed. He breathed her in. It was his favourite scent: that of her skin and the hair along her neck. She chuckled then as she found herself then longing in reciprocation, for the very smell that not twenty minutes ago had been the reason she'd been glad he'd showered. Only the dampness remained, but with a smirk she thought: _we'll see to that._

"Wot you laughin' at?" He asked, cheerful but hesitant.

"Oh just the fact that I made you shower, but now I kinda miss the smell."

You're bonkers, you know that?" He said, and backed her a little more towards the bed between kisses.

"Want me to change?" She asked with a lazy half-smile.

"Uhnn..." He groaned in place of shaking his head then released her: "Shut the fuck up and get on the bed." - he grinned, with a gentle tilt of her hips with his hands that suggested (as usual) for her to go on all fours. Shepard hesitated however, and on second thought turned back instead to face him fully.

"Not this time." She said, and reached for the scarred side of his face to slide her fingers down the pits and lines. "Not _this_ time." She affirmed, and anxiousness flashed across his face - the haunting need of the Loading Bay was suddenly back. Seriousness in her eyes, she met his almost plea with a firm grip around his penis, which she then snugged between her legs. _I want you_ – she tried to say with her expression, silently reassuring him. His hands, momentarily unsure as to where to go or what to do, then groped after her muscular behind. The grip between her thighs held him tight enough to feel him moving inside his foreskin as he pressed his hips against hers. Jaw jutting to one side, his eyes locked on her as he repeated the movement, groping after her behind and her waist. His breathing quickened.

"I want to be able to see you." She said, kissing him deeply before backing one knee onto the bed. He paused, and for a moment she worried - he genuinely looked uncomfortable. It seems he thought about it for a moment, ducking his head a little in the interim. _Is he... nervous?_

"What is it?" She wondered aloud, "Are you afraid I won't like what I see, or something?" She jested light-heartedly and reached up for the scarred side of his face again. Quickly her expression turned sympathetic and kind then; desperate to reassure him. What followed as his reaction, however, completely baffled her: His worry turned feverish, sweat beads broke out over his forehead... but then he bowled her backwards onto the bed. Almost shaking he quickly sought entry, not succeeding... Although Shepard, it has to be said, was rather glad of that, for not entirely having been prepared for such sudden enthusiasm.

"Easy now..." - softly she spoke, "Easy..." and hushed him to calm.

"...Dunno if I can..." His breath shook his body as he exhaled.

"Zaeed..." Anxiously she tried to soothe him, "Zaeed..." She sighed and stroked her fingers through his hair. She smiled up at him: "All these games you play, finding ways for me not to see you." She looked up at him and cocked her head to one side. "What is it you think you're compensating for?" She asked.

"Nothing, I just figured..." But he was too raw for defences.

"You're _amazing_ in bed. I have no complaints. That's not _despite_ what you look like, _or_ who you are. You didn't just 'win me over' with gifts or technique." She smiled and tested the texture of his scars with her fingertips as he hovered above her, searching her eyes for answers.

"First... you earned my respect, by standing and fighting at my side. You did that in spite of the odds, regardless of what we were up against, and you didn't falter." Her fingers caressed the scars that graced his back and sides as she slid her hands down towards his hips. "The details I see on your face and over your body remind me that you _have_ that resolve." She gave his buttocks a playful squeeze. "And the moments I've seen you at your worst? Those are the moments that showed me the kind of man you _could_ be..."

Clearly he didn't know how to take that. She could almost see his confidence plummet. _Oh... well shit._ He almost seemed to say, as if that were a negative thing she counted against him. She shook her head and smiled at his confusion. She reached for his jaw with one hand, and slid her fingers around his (not quite so hard) erection with the other, smirking coyly as she tried to better make her point:

"... The person you could be if only given the chance for so long your life has denied. _Zaeed..."_ Her voice turned low and seductive, "I've _wanted_ you ever since I saw that first glimpse of who you truly are... Who you are deep down when all the confidence and all the bluster - and everything else your life has taught you to hide behind - is blown away." Biology began to comply as he grew harder from her words, or her attentions, maybe both.

She shrugged. "I saw your walls come tumbling down and seeing them fall somehow brought mine down with them. You found the heart I didn't even know I still had..." She searched his eyes, hopeful, lightly dragging a thumb across his cheek to his sideburn: "...and something tells me... that I did the same thing for you."

"Fucking understatement." - His reaction was a raised brow and semi-scowl, but Shepard smiled gladness up at him.

"Well, I need to know that you want me just as much as you need to know I want _you."_

"I ever given you reason to doubt?!" He frowned.

Another squeeze with her fingers to make her point: " _I_ want to  see you enjoy me," Sliding her fingers down to his scrotum and back up, "- this body of mine," He pulsed between her fingers, she slid her hand up and down the shaft. "...and I want to see it in your eyes: how much you want me." She could feel him harden in her hand. He looked away as he studied her body, and slowly began to rock his pelvis down to her assisting hand.

"Uhnnn..." He groaned, taking in the sight of her, and her words, "Way you talk about me..." ...growing a little harder in her hand, "...fucking makes me feel _young_ again." - another pulse and harder again, "Like when the world was new... and all my whole goddamn life was in front of me." He opened his eyes, finally, and looked into hers:

"You make me feel... _alive_." Taking hold of himself he allowed her to use both her hands to part herself, ready.

"Well..." She bit her lip as she helped to guide his end until it touched against her. "Mmn..." She murmured in anticipation.

Sweat still beaded on his face when she glanced up, but she slowed his enthusiasm with a gentle squeeze of her thighs. In slow spurts then, he began to press up against her, a little more of her lubricant gathering to him each time. One little push more and she ceased needing to hold him. Her hands and her eyes returned to wander lustfully over his body, taking every detail as never before with his every move.

" _You_ make me feel..." Her voice was breathy as he bade his foreskin behave, inching his way into her,"...Like I'm  real." She groaned at the sensation of feeling him move frictionless inside of himself, as his swollen tip pushed deeper into her. He pulled out a little each time, before slowly pushing in deeper in with each thrust. She moaned for what was to come. _Deeper -_

"You make me feel..." – _Deeper –_

 _"_...like I'm still..." _Deeper still -_

"...Human." - _Deeper._

She blinked hard, agasp as he withdrew, arching her back as he pulled out that much further. She pushed her pelvis up to meet his return, taking him in as deep as he would go; the pleasure of his pelvis pressing to her clitoris was enough to make her squint and moan.

"Fuck me," He murmured, ever surprised by just how much she managed to turn him on, "I _want_ you." He assaulted her neck hungrily as the pace began to quicken.

"Fuck _me_ I want you too." She exclaimed as he moved - slow strokes - groping after her ass before each thrust. Another groan and he quickened the pace yet more, but he was back to old habits and so was she: arms wrapped arms wrapped around one another, heads buried into each other's shoulders.

 _You sneaky little bastard..._ She smiled. _Ohhhh no... That's it: you're going on your back this time!_

First she bade him slow the pace. Then, tucking her left leg behind his knee whilst raising her right to his hips, she prepared to roll him onto his back... Except he was onto her scheming - that or he _really_ liked that angle. Certainly it  almost felt just too good to stop, especially when he groaned into her neck with heightened desire like _that_.

 _Oh... Good... God..._

With sheer determination though, she managed: she entwined her other leg and then (with brute force) rolled him over with him still inside her. There was an awkward moment of physical adjustment but once she'd sorted out the position of her knees and her placement over him, she placed her hand upon his chest and turned her head to meet his eyes... Whereupon she then froze. He almost looked terrified, although the lust was still there.

"Hey." She said cheerfully taking both his hands in hers in a non-sexy way. "You OK?"

She had a horrible thought then, like maybe the last time he'd had someone on top of him like this, it was something _bad_. Her face turned to worry.

At least he managed a response: "Yeah but... I uh..." He tried, "Um... Haven't done it this way in a long... long time." He half-laughed, which set her more at ease. She smiled disbelieving with a raised brow, to which he added:

"I ... uh... May not last long..." - it was clear from his face that he really _was_ worried about that. Shepard couldn't help but grin _. As if that would bother me after all the other times we've had sex!_ She shook her head.

"Ohhhh... Well." She rolled her eyes with a toss of her head, "At least that'll make a change. I might even get to sleep at a sensible time, for once." She teased with a wink and a wriggle, placing one hand on the bed just left of his ear, she grabbed a pillow and offered it to him for his head. He took it, hesitantly, before she leaned down and added with a sultry tone:

"Sounds _good_ to me. I rather like the idea of fucking you until I _make_ you cum." She slid her hands down over his body, tracing the scars and hairline before looking up and kissing him.

"Had no idea you could be like that." He said breaking the kiss for breath.

"Yeah well... I wear a lot of hats Mr. Massani." She said with a sly smile as she felt him pulse harder inside her. "Some days I shut down criminals..." She grinned, planting him with a brief but passionate kiss, "Some days I diffuse nukes..." Tilting her head to the other side, another brief passionate kiss then: "Some days I like to enjoy _private vices_."

She kissed him deeply. Quickly his tongue met hers and he enthusiastically thrust his hips up to meet her pelvis. It was funny – at first he didn't seem to know where to put his hands at all. She released him from the kiss as she rocked her pelvis against him again, this time taking his hands and then – with her own – guiding them over her body... It seemed like for a moment he almost needed her _permission_ to do that - odd on its own. The moment his hands met her skin though, he was gusting breath and groping hard. _Faster_ – he bade her. _Faster._

She obliged for a little while then – cruel or not (she considered taunting him with the question) – she smirked rebelliously and slowed the pace. With slow deliberation, she pressed herself against him with tortuously enjoyable pulses, squeezing him internally with each one. She rocked her pelvis against his abdominal muscles, sliding him in and out that way more than lifting herself up and down, as that seemed to give them both the most pleasure.

She thought his head might explode for just how red his face had gone, and he glared up at her, jaw jutting as she did this. He was watching and she made a point of making it clear how much she was enjoying him. She ground her pelvis against him, licked and bit her own lips as she did so, frowning as she exhaled in bursts every other swing of her pelvis - it felt _good_ and she damn well wanted him to know it.

Slowly she moved a little faster, and moaned as she did so. Her hands paddy-pawing at his chest in gropes of her own as his one hand very firmly gripped her ass. She'd lean forward enough for his other to chase after her breast as she rocked. He was enthralled – no doubt about it. He watched her almost unblinking.

His hands and his eyes, wondered over her breasts and down her sides but regularly flicked back to her face, whereupon she met the anxiety that showed with the intent to be _very_ clear about how much she wanted him. She was taking him in as deeply as he could possibly go. She reached behind to very lightly stroke his scrotum with her fingers as she did so. He groaned, mouth wide, and thrust his pelvis up to her as he rammed his head back into the pillow. He must be close now, but she didn't care if he came. She _wanted_ him to, and wanted to feel it, and see it, when he did.

She stopped long enough to lean forward and slide her hand against the scarred side of his face as she smothered his lips with hers. She thrust her tongue against his in rhythm to the throbbing and rocking of her feeling him within. _You're damned right I can feel you -_ was what she said with every motion of her tongue. _I can feel you pulsing inside of me. There... There again..._ Then she'd focus on her own muscular contractions, timing those and her tongue to each swing of her hips with an appropriately hungry groan. _Can you feel that?_

Her pace quickened and she knew she'd need to release his lips if she was going to see it on his face when he came. He pulled himself up to grasp after her ass with both hands, then with ever-hardening ecstasy building inside her, he worked to push against her in faster and haphazard thrusts that she obliged by keeping still.

He groaned as she felt him give, he collapsed back down against the pillow. She had stared down at him to the last so that she could – for the first time – _see_ his face as he came... And so that he would meet her eyes each time he opened them, after she felt the vibration of fluid gushing up to be released inside of her.

She gave a sly smile, and followed suit herself quickly enough – rocking against him. He gripped her tightly as she came, draining the last of him with him still breathing hard. She groaned and squinted, the pleasure almost too much to bear as her eyes blurred and she came down to hang on her forearms, shaking violently. She continued to wriggle in slow pulses as he too shivered, shuddered and groaned.

She gave him slow, deep, tongueful kisses after that, and he frowned hard for the seriousness with which he kissed her back. His hands – shaky – were all over her: most of all about her face, and she realised his eyes were watering. He tried to sit up, crossing ankles behind her to try to embrace her the more closely. She wrapped her legs around his back and, hugged him as best she could. She realised her own eyes were watering then, too. She laughed joyfully as a tear fell. Then he held her tightly to himself as he lifted her up with his own strength and planted her swiftly and firmly onto her back.

There, he lay between her legs, pressing a pulsing partial erection into her her as he stroked all over her body, lifting one of her knees so that he could get at the skin of the back of her thigh and her ass, all the while kissing deeply into her. It was, she guessed, a _thank you_. That or he had delusions about finishing twice. It was a while before he gave that up, although it was clear if biology would have allowed it, they'd already be on round two. Eventually he slowed down enough to come to a stop. He stared down at her, she stared up at him, and for a while... the galaxy just... stopped... spinning.

He looked as if he was about to say something, but couldn't find the words. He pulled out, and collapsed then next to her, an arm and a leg across her as he planted his head into her shoulder and neck. He nuzzled into her neck. She wriggled against the thigh resting between her legs in still-aroused self-satisfaction. She held to him as he held to her, like they were each other's lifeline to sanity.

He did, in the end, find something he wanted to say. He cleared his throat to do it, and stroked a hand down the side of her face as he looked first at her lips and then into her eyes when she turned to face him:

"Dunno what you want with a washed-up old mongrel like me," He stroked her hair behind her ear with all but a growling whisper as he said: "...but I'm yours." He pulled a face and shrugged. "For as long as you'll have me." He swallowed and looked her in the eyes again. He smiled that sly smile he had when he thought of something smart to do: "And probably after that, too."

She puffed air in humour at that and smiled, hugging him against her and softly kissed his forehead.

"I'll hold you to that." She said as she stroked his hair, enjoying the texture between her fingers as she caught his eyes again: "As long as you stay a ridiculous old-romantic with a love for model ships and old jazz music." He scowled at the compliment, so she added: "Although... It _would_ be nice if you could do something about that incredibly bad temper of yours..." She shrugged and laughed again. He laughed too. A moment passed and he nuzzled back down into her neck.

"Huh. Like that, is it? Didn't realise there was room to bargain. Well in that case... Hmmm..." He elongated the sound, dragging it downwards in pitch as he ended it. _"You_ could try to be less of a know-it-all goddamn pain in the backside." He suggested, grumbling.

She clipped him round the ear and then hugged him: "Don't push your luck."

* * *

REFERENCES:

"Everything I touch, I break" are words taken from the lyrics of the song 'Everything I Touch' from the album 'Darkest Days' by Stabbing Westward.

I sort of integrated a line from the film Star Trek II: Wrath Of Khan where Carol Marcus says: "Let me show you something that will make you feel young as when the world was new." - I don't know what it is about the way the actress delivers that line, or that line in particular, but it's always had a tendency to make me tear up.

I guess I see parallels with Zaeed and Kirk and borrow from the feel of Kirk's life once he is older at times: both have accomplished amazing things, but in the Star Trek films, you see the crew older, and you perceive: Kirk is actually lonely. In that particular film, he has a former partner, and a son, but that life all went wrong. When he first meets her again after so many years, one of the first things he says, in a rather oddly innocent way is "I did what you asked. I stayed away."

I imagine if Zaeed had met Alice alive after what happened to her because of him, she might well have calmly told him (whilst deeply hurt and upset nonetheless) to stay away. She more than likely knew he cheated on her, but was patient because she could see the person he _could_ be, and wanted to help him leave the path he'd otherwise be heading down. Nevertheless, people can be pushed to far. I think after what happened to her, she probably had to draw a line.

Title to this chapter refers to the way I see Shepard and Zaeed, and why I think they could have a love that lasts: they are similar in a lot of ways, but they still have different perspectives that compliment one another. Disagreements may be frequent and heated, but when they _agree_ on something... _whole galaxies_ may be moved by their combined efforts.


	26. Chapter 26 - A Life Renewed

~ Finding The Heart ~

A Life Renewed

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the intellectual property of Bioware, not mine.

WARNING: Rated MA. 16yrs+ readers only please. Foul language, adult concepts.

Author note: I've purposefully tried not to describe Shepard too much, after all, fans of Mass Effect will each have their own versions of Shepard, so I leave those parts up to your imagination.

* * *

"Look." Jack said, cheerfully swinging her empty mug of coffee with rum, "I'm not saying I needed the help _Queeny_... I'm just sayin' that maybe I was glad you didn't shoot me in the back. Better that I expected, is all."

Miranda pulled a sour face: "That's the thanks I get? Remind me not to accidentally push you out of the Kodiak when we're on our next mission." She tossed her hair out of her eyes and propped her elbow onto the table.

"Don't be like that..." Jack frowned. "Queeny _sweetheart_ you need to learn how to take a joke." – Jack pulled face as if _she_ were the one who'd just been insulted. Miranda didn't respond – her face betraying no emotion either way.

 _Icequeen._ "That ass of yours is waaaaay to tight." Jack shrugged.

"And yours is way too loose." Miranda retorted, and smirked for the colour Jack went when she caught the reference.

"Takes one to know one." Jack squinted at her. Then after a pause, putting her mug down, she hugged her body to her thigh - one foot raised to rest on the bench she shared opposite Miranda. She huffed out a big sigh, propping her chin on the knee of the leg she'd raised, foot on the bench as she sat. Miranda just sipped at her black coffee with measured reserve. Miranda just sipped at her black coffee with measured reserve.

"Well, I think I'm going to retire to my quarters. Maybe catch a vid or something." Miranda got up to go, dropping off her mug with Gardener before walking past Jack on her way through: "Care to join me?" She was trying, really trying hard.

"Uh..." Jack was doubly shocked by the invitation. "Well..." She fidgeted, before getting up, leaving her mug unattended. "Sure. Can do. Not like I've got anything _better_ to do." She said, and swaggered over to Miranda.

Miranda consciously restrained herself from saying: _'Aren't you going to give your mug back to Gardener?'_ and instead turned to go. Walking along the decking before reaching their destination, Jack remarked:

"Better not be your standard 'chick flick'." She shrugged defensively. "I'm allergic to them."

"I can't promise anything you'll like, but who knows: maybe we can find something we both like."

Walking into Miranda's quarters together was a surreal experience for both of them. Last time both were here, Shepard had to intervene to stop them from tearing a new hole in the hull. It was strange to wonder face-first into the memory of smearing wall threats. Miranda put some music on.

"The shit is this?!" – Jack's immediate reaction, having not given it more than three seconds – anything with piano as a primary instrument had got to be lame.

"My quarters, my rules. I picked the intermission music, you pick the movie. If you can't find anything on my vid-playlist you can ask EDI to run an extranet search for criteria that suit us both. There's bound to be _something_ made at _some_ point in time _somewhere_ in the galaxy that the both of us can stomach, based on sheer probability alone. " – Miranda tidied away a few things here and there.

"Sure don't remember you having this much clutter last time." Jack remarked.

"Well, things have been a little different since we quit working for The Illusive Man." She said, straightening out a cushion. She might be a little less anal about tidiness now, but everything still had its place, and that's where it all went when she tidied – _exactly_.

Jack sat browsing through Miranda's collection of intellectual [crap] – documentaries on this, documentaries on that... She'd categorised, subcategorised and cross-referenced _everything_ by contextual setting and mood. Jack's eyes widened as she got to the 's's... _Sadistic, Sensual, Sexual, Snide, Spiritual..._ and couldn't resist a look in the _Sexual_ category. A sigh of disappointment followed a quick look: no raunchy porno vids or anything so easy to take the piss out of or use as ammunition later. Rather it was mostly films Jack had never watched, but the ones she recognised were just regular films that had sex scenes in.

Miranda poured them both drinks and Jack was pleasantly surprised by what was brought to her: "You've done your homework. Good." She smiled and feigned a toast with her rum and coke.

"I wouldn't be a very good spy now if I couldn't get little things like that right, now would I, _Pirate?"_ Miranda slid her a tight-lipped smile through slit eyes and a sidewards glance.

Jack pouted, then nodded. It was... _nice_. It was an odd thing, seeing Queeny let her hair down a little. Pity she hadn't been this way from the start instead of the stuck-up prancing pony-playing-minder for Shepard that she had been.

Having not paid attention to the music for a while, Jack hadn't noticed how her fingers had begun to tap to the beat. Noticing it, she suddenly stopped and listened. It actually wasn't half bad – in spite of the piano.

"You never answered my question Queeny: What's the music?"

"Tori Amos. Late 20th to 21st century pianist and song-writer. The style of your literary works mirrors her style a little so I thought maybe you might like the odd song."

Jack open-jawed gawked – an expression that quickly turned to anger. "The fuck do you mean by that?"

"Your poetry." Miranda acknowledged, tight-lipped and prepared for an explosion she believed she probably deserved to be caught in.

"How the fuck did you know about that?! That's my private shit! You should keep your fucking nose out of-"

"It's really good." Miranda caught her eyes, deadpan.

"Fuck off. Fuck you and your fucking nosying around in everybody else's business!" – It was a violation, and Miranda damn well knew it was. Jack was about to storm out at that point but Miranda caught her arm.

"Get your fucking hands off me or I fucking _swear..."_

"IT. WAS. GOOD." – From Miranda, closer quarters now. "And I only read the one the Shadow Broker had on record – I swear." Loosing her grip on Jack's arm a little, she shrugged and added: "I didn't know how else to ask you about other works. I didn't think you'd believe me if I told you I'd discovered you by accident, and the account you used to submit that poem to the competition is a trail long-dead."

Jack was scowling. "The fuck do I care you got it from? You shouldn't have read it. Period."

"I'm sorry..." Miranda tried to say.

Shaking her arm free, Jack added: "And the fuck do I care what you think about it?" She'd had flushed red all over her face, even through her tan and tattoos. Glancing around the room, Jack set to pace out she muttered under her breath:

"Fucking waste of time anyway." She huffed, but didn't quite make it through the door before saying over her shoulder: "Like everything I've ever tried to do. Nothing I ever fucking do works out. EVER."

"I know... I wasn't saying I liked it because I _pitied_ you Jack. I really do like what you wrote. Same way I like this music."

Jack stopped, turned around and frowned. "You still shouldn't have read it."

"I'm sorry." Still deadpan.

"Quit fucking apologising." Jack shook her head.

"...I'm _sorry._ " Miranda shrugged.

Jack rolled her eyes up and over: "You're sounding like a fucking broken record." Fisting her hands. "Alright. Alright. Just... forget it OK?" Finally she looked at Miranda, and was satisfied when she saw just a touch of hurt in her expression.

"OK." Miranda shrugged, and Jack paced back into her quarters.

Jack found a cushion she wanted, snatched it and shoved it down with irritated force where she wanted to sit. After pausing to let out an annoyed huff, she resumed her hunt for vids. Miranda finished tidying, grabbed a blanket from a cupboard and sat on the sofa a seat away from Jack. Patiently she waited for her to finish scanning the list.

"Your list is fucking terrible." Jack scowled.

Miranda kept her tongue, and did not apologise again. Jack scrolled through everything, thinking then about how she'd seen Miranda's 'porn' list, and how maybe in a way – _maybe_ – they were almost one for one. Except she wondered then: Miranda probably could have hidden that folder from view. Even not knowing Jack was coming to her quarters, Jack bet that a few taps of her omnitool and Queeny could've easily hidden it before she'd started looking.

The idea that she wanted Jack to see it made Jack just a touch nervous, or maybe it was because she really _did_ want to talk about poetry and that was Queeny's way of evening the score, to make her feel more at ease. Fuck knows. The bitch was more manipulative than an Asari matriarch having mid-life crisis. _...But she liked it?_

Jack relinquished her search, distracted: "...You really liked it?"

"Yes. I really liked it." Miranda answered, studying the contents of her own glass, and said not another word.

Jack thought about that. "Well..." She shrugged, and tried to sound 'not bothered': "Not promising anything, but... _Maybe_ if you send me a copy of this Tori album or whatever you said it was, I might send you another one to read. Not that I couldn't get this off a pirate station easily enough, it's just I'm feeling lazy."

Miranda tried really, really hard not to smile. "Sure. Consider it done." And still trying to be nonchalant: "I'll pick out a few of her songs I think you'll like. If you like them, you can go check out the rest yourself then." She shrugged.

"Right." Jack agreed. And then, having just acquired the search results from EDI she'd issued just moments go: "I think I might've found us a film or two to watch. Think 'Demolition Man' might be right up your street - there's a prim and proper dark-haired bitch in it." She smiled remembering the almost sex-scene. _Wonder if she'll squirm cuz I'm here. That'll be fun to watch._ "But I think I'm going with this one first." Jack grinned, especially pleased with herself for that choice. "I think you're going to like it. It's called 'Tank Girl'."

* * *

"That lady and old man are back again daddy!" Uhuru was excited. "The ones who were at mama's grave!" She was practically hopping up and down. Thane and Samara had just told her and daddy that they would be.

Vladimir glanced towards Samara and Thane, who had (to his great uncertain surprise) brought him back to their farm unharmed, just as had been promised. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Perhaps this was it. Uhuru, whose innocent little mind could not yet conceive of such treachery, was undaunted, and went running off to meet them.

"Don't get in the way of the car landing!" He scolded her – an immediate concern as she rarely interacted with landing vehicles. He didn't know what to feel, because relief could be misleading. He'd rather be prepared for what worse there was to come. In his experience: there was nearly always something worse.

"Hello!" Uhuru yelled up and waved enthusiastically as they got out of the vehicle, whose paintwork glistened in the midday sun. It was pretty.

"Hello. Uhuru." Shepard crouched down and smiled – her armour was battered and tarnished in places but it was still shiny. "Are you and your daddy OK?"

Uhuru positively beamed: "Yes! Are you going to stay for awhile? Samara and Thane are really nice! When the bad people came, they sent them away. I don't think _they'll_ be back again. There were a lot of bangs. I like them being here."

Shepard smiled at Zaeed over her shoulder. "I am glad they looked after you. Is your daddy inside?" Uhuru nodded and grinned. "Can I go see him?" Another enthusiastic nod. She patted Uhuru on the head, and didn't know the privilege she'd just been allowed by the little girl in doing that. "I'm going to do that then, Zaeed will make sure everything is OK outside – you can stay with him if you like."

Uhuru thought about that for a moment, looked at Zaeed, who almost looked terrified at the prospect, then decided with a nod:

"OK." Knowing what Samara had told her of little Uhuru on their way over to the farm, that _probably_ meant that she wanted to ask him questions. For some reason the thought of Zaeed squirming put Shepard in an unfathomably good mood.

Once inside, Shepard savoured a cup of locally produced tea (a mixture of rosemary and sage, and black tea shipped from the other continent). She sipped at it slowly whilst she sat down and told Vladimir that he and Uhuru should never have to worry about the Blue Suns in future. She explained the truth about Vido, how it had been his obsession and unrequited love for Zaeed that had driven him to do many things, and she made a point of highlighting how many of those things involved hurting Zaeed as much as everyone connected to him.

She explained that what happened to Alice was ultimately a part of that, as had been their combined suffering all the way here to Mindoir under the thumb of Vido and his potentially indoctrination-enhanced loyal little inner-circle harem. She tried to underline that Zaeed knew none of what went on, and had been manipulated from Vido probably from the first day Vido lay eyes on him.

She explained however, that now: Vido was dead, and so was anyone who might exact revenge on his behalf. Vladimir, and Uhuru, were finally safe. All their debts associated with the Blue Suns were cancelled (EDI and Kasumi had been working hard on that), other debts were scaled down in the case of third party contracts and direct contracts with those third parties had been set up (this actually benefited everyone involved).

After that had been arranged Shepard had seen to it that all debts remaining had been paid off with the credits she'd secured for some of the things she found at the Blue Suns base. Thanks to the reductions, there had even been credits left over: the Normandy could keep running a while longer. She thought it important to point that out, because technically, the operation _cost_ a lot to execute, but it had effectively more than paid for itself in that regard. She wanted Vladimir to understand she wasn't ever going to come to him later, claiming he owed _her_. That was probably something he had feared, from the relief that spread across his face when she told him.

Zaeed came inside shortly after that, finally needing to escape Uhuru's endless questions about what it was like to hunt down bad people, having correctly established that yes he _liked_ the lady everyone called Shepard, and then having endlessly been pestered with questions about _that_ ... Why he liked her. How much he liked her. Were they going to get married... (that had been the precise question that had sent him briskly walking indoors). Sitting down at the table, he now joined the conversation:

"I know there's been bad blood between us Vladimir. I don't expect you to like me, but I'm sorry for everything that's happened. And uh... I want you to know that any time you or Uhuru have any trouble, you just let me know and I'll handle it."

Vladimir's eyebrows rose in surprise, and his gaunt face took on a little more liveliness. After a moment he blinked and tried to acknowledge, with a lump in his throat. "...It's OK." He swallowed, everything still setting into his mind; good news was surreal. "...Shepard told me everything. I always knew Vido was crazy but I had no idea _how_ crazy. I know... that you were _not_ responsible."

Zaeed nodded, and perhaps nobody but Shepard would have noticed the visible cues – the slight raising of his eyebrows, relaxation of muscles around his eyes, and the ever so slight bob of his head upwards – that betrayed how much that lifted the weight of a terrible burden from his shoulders. He sipped at his tea.

"With your permission," Zaeed began, and Shepard looked at him, wondering what he was about to ask, "I'd like to give you a little money towards Uhuru's upkeep and her education." Vladimir and Shepard both raised their eyebrows at that as he continued. "I was hoping something like fifty thousand credits would be enough to help her go to college, or get her training in whatever she wants to do in life?" Shepard's eyes widened further still – she had forgotten he had that kind of cash to splash around. _Bekenstein._ She reminded herself: _He considered retiring on Bekenstein. How much does a piece of land_ _there_ _cost?! So if he could afford_ _that_ _then..._

Vladimir began to move his head in a nod, which quickly became a very enthusiastic nod indeed. "Absolutely. That would be more than enough. I can't tell you what that would mean to us... I've been scared for years now, that I wouldn't have enough to give her a chance at anything."

Zaeed sucked a tooth and nodded. "Howsabout the farm?"

Vladimir stared open-eyed and blank at him for a moment in disbelief. "Well... we'll get by."

"Another fifty thousand then – for the farm." He smiled slyly.

"I appreciate everything you've both – all of you and your people have done for us but... I don't feel comfortable taking so much-"

Zaeed butt in: "I'm not her father." – direct and to the point. "I wouldn't know how to be." He shrugged. "But I guess you could say I feel I have a debt to pay. Maybe I didn't do the things Vido told you I did, maybe I'm not _quite_ the godforsaken bastard you once knew, but I missed the chance to apologise to Alice for the things I _was_ responsible for. Not like I treated Alice like she deserved. _You_ did that." He shrugged and hinged his fingers upwards in a half-wave, from the hand that stayed connected to the kitchen table:

"I'm not asking to be part of Uhuru's life. She belongs to you and Alice."

Vladimir thought about that, and furtively looked from Shepard to Zaeed, noticing then that Shepard looked not at him, but Zaeed, in that instant. It wasn't 'boss and underling' he saw in that split second, or 'comrades in arms'. He knew, because it was the same expression he caught himself pulling sometimes watching Uhuru play, and it was the same expression Alice had offered him many a time. It wasn't just sympathy. It was love.

 _When Zaeed came, I thought we were dead. I was so scared by all the lies that Vido told, I never saw it. But now..._

"You keep this bastard in line?" Vladimir asked of Shepard.

A duck of the eyes later, she answered: "Yes."

 _So it's true._ Vladimir noted also that Shepard's hand closest to Zaeed was missing – having been withdrawn to under the table. Vladimir took a moment to contemplate her answer, thinking about how the Drell and Asari had handled him and Uhuru.

 _Vladimir: What will we do if we cannot go home?_

 _Thane: If your planet still exists, Shepard will see to it that you return there._

 _Samara: Shepard's code is not unlike that of a Justicar's. She is highly capable, and she will stop at nothing to accomplish her goal. [slight pause] You and your child will be safe._

He had not forgotten also that Thane and Samara had kept them safe, at Shepard's orders. Finally, Vladimir began to entertain the suspicion that she really was the hero everyone believed her to be. If she was with Zaeed then... that just couldn't make sense unless she had dropped her halo or... _Could Zaeed really have changed_ _that_ _much..?_ Vladimir took a deep breath, let it go, and reality finally seemed to sink in: all the struggling, all the worry, all the fear... – was finally over. It really, truly, was.

"Alright." He said, still a little reluctant.

Shepard nudged an elbow into Zaeed's armoured ribs and said: "And he gets called 'Uncle Zaeed'."

... Just because the look on Zaeed's face when she said it was surely worth it. Vladimir and Zaeed both guffawed, but when Vladimir caught the look of fear that flashed across Zaeed's face, he felt so much more at ease.

"Auntie Shepard and Uncle Zaeed..." – He jested, finally feeling comfortable with present company.

Shepard tilted her head, frowned and half-opened her mouth – but realised she'd walked right into that one. Instead she turned to look at Zaeed, who was trying to hide his smirk behind a slurp of tea, but he slanted his eyes at her and she could almost hear him say: _Serves you bloody right._ She couldn't help but chuckle then.

"I guess you've already got us sussed out." Shepard ventured, sheepishly – well... as sheepishly as she ever was in public, anyway.

Vladimir nodded slowly. "Little things." Then looked at Zaeed: "You better treat _her_ better." – with a tilt of his head towards Shepard, but all the threat as if he mean it.

Zaeed met Vladimir's eyes and his gaze with conviction: "Count on it." Then with a shrug and a more cheerfully expression and another slurp of his tea: "Besides." Zaeed set the cup down. "This one'll bloody shoot me if I misbehave."

"Good." Vladimir was quick to respond. "Good." He repeated, a little more light-hearted the second time. His mind then set to doing calculations, eyes fixed on the table as he finished his own mug of tea.

"With that money..." He began to take it all in, "I could hire enough hands to bring in the harvest this year..." He thought about that and his face lit up with relief. Then turning more sober he looked up at the both of them: "If I can do that, I can pay some of it back. I could give you twenty thousand credits, if the market price is good this year."

Zaeed lifted his hand to stop the offer. "Forget about it. It should have been me that saved Alice all those years ago and stood by her ever since, but I screwed that up and you stepped in – did what needed to be done on your own despite everything Vido threw at you. Alice... lived a happy life, thanks to you." – a flash of her sunny smile in the photograph from her obituary sprang into Zaeed's mind – "This is the least I can do."

Shepard looked upon Zaeed and wondered: his face was sober, but the trauma was gone. She wasn't sure what lay in store for their future, but she at least had hope: he seemed to be mending, even after everything. She was glad.

"Uhuru!" Vladimir called her in, and doubtless Thane and Samara were glad to be free of the endless stream of questions. "Uhuru!" The little girl came running, red ribbons in her bouncing black locks of hair.

"Daddy?" She asked, cocking her head to one side.

"You now have an Aunt and Uncle. From now on, this is Uncle Zaeed and Auntie Shepard. Can you remember that?" Uhuru nodded enthusiastically and grinned – she'd never had an Uncle or an Auntie before. This was so great!

Shepard smiled. "Vladimir is there a shop in town that Uhuru likes to look around in? If there's something you know she'd really like..." Vladimir looked at Uhuru, who's eyes lit up.

"I think I know just the place." He smiled at her.

"Daddy! Daddy! Really?! I can have it?!" Uhuru started jumping up and down.

"First thing tomorrow... if it's not too much for you, Auntie Shepard?" Vladimir looked at her, about to explain what 'it' was but Zaeed interrupted:

"Whatever it is, I'll cover any difference." Zaeed said, and waved a dismissive hand in the air. Vladimir realised that with the amount of money Zaeed had already offered them, what he had in mind to buy Uhuru was mere pocket change by comparison.

"Then it's settled. First thing tomorrow morning, we get you that rocking Elcor!" He smiled and opened his arms, and Uhuru ran and threw hers about him, hugging her father before she kissed him on the cheek.

Shepard's eyebrows raised and momentarily considered her diplomatic reputation. She tried to imagine what the Elcor ambassador might have to say about a rocking horse fashioned in the shape of an Elcor being produced for human children, and winced. It was too late to object now though.

Uhuru then hopped off her father's lap, and ran straight to Shepard. Shepard wasn't ready for the jumping hug she then received that nearly took them both off the chair...

"Thank you Auntie Shepard!" Uhuru gleefully declared, and Shepard got a hug _and_ a kiss on the cheek as well. Shepard hugged Uhuru back as best she could in full armour and bewildered, smiled as she replied:

"You're welcome Uhuru."

"Thank you for making the bad people go away too." Uhuru nodded in Zaeed's direction, before she leapt off Shepard's lap and ran around the table straight into him - Zaeed absolutely knowing not what to do except that he needed to put his tea down pronto before the little lump landed in _his_ lap.

"Thank you Uncle Zaeed!" She sang tunefully, kissed him on the cheek and straight away jumped down and ran off to tell Thane and Samara the wonderful news.

" _Guess what Auntie Shepard's getting me?!"_ – Her little voice still audible although distant. Shepard's heart sank and she took another gulp of tea to hide it as the inevitable followed: _"A rocking Elcor! It's like a rocking horse but it's bigger and it's got this cute wrinkly nose and..."_

Shepard's heart stopped, and suddenly she rather wanted to find rock to crawl under... Until she looked at Zaeed, and then felt nothing but joy. For a moment, he really did look like some doting old visiting uncle or grandfather, chucking at Shepard's inconvenience, gulping down tea with an old and wise smile. It was so sweet. One of those moments you wished would last forever.

"Well, I think our work here is done. I'm sorry we can't stay any longer but..." Shepard shrugged. "There's always something else I have to fix."

Vladimir nodded and rose with them to his feet. "I understand. I really don't have the words to thank you – all of you – for what you've done for me and Uhuru. All I can say is I think I'll sleep tonight, better than I have in fifteen years. The farm is saved. _We_ are saved. Thanks to you. I can never repay that."

Shepard smiled with satisfaction as she pushed the chair back under the table. "Just doing the right thing." She took his hand to shake and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Zaeed did the same in turn but with a greater pause and an expression that conveyed his sincerity. Releasing Vladimir's hand and shoulder, he hesitated to ask:

"Could I... maybe talk with Uhuru for a moment, if that's alright by you?" Vladimir grew a little nervous. "It's OK it'll only take a minute. I just have something I think should belong to her." Vladimir frett for a moment, but then reluctantly nodded. Faith wasn't an easy thing to give, but he tried. Shepard collected Thane and Samara as she left Zaeed to handle what she suspected she knew.

Zaeed showed Vladimir the glittering gold chain now resting in his gloved hand. "It's something that Alice gave me... a long, long time ago. I uh... Well. I just think that Alice would've wanted Uhuru to have had it if not me." He shrugged, and struggled actually, to meet Vladimir's eyes. "Tell the truth," He stared at the necklace, "...giving it up will help me let her go. It'll help me get on with my life, if I'm honest. It's the only thing I ever had of her..."

Vladimir calmed himself, and began slowly to nod. "May I... see it?"

Awkwardly Zaeed met his eyes and paused, uncertain, before eventually handing it over. He watched uncomfortably as Vladimir read the inscription. Vladimir then smiled a painful smile and said:

"She really had a heart of gold." Vladimir sighed, and then admitted something he'd never admitted aloud to anyone: "I think, deep down," – he had to swallow to get the words out... "...Deep down, even though she couldn't remember it: I think she always loved you."

That stung. Still, it didn't sting quite as much as he would have expected it to. A lot less than if he'd found out earlier. Somehow... it almost made him feel a little better. Hearing somebody who knew her say that Alice had truly loved him was a relief. It meant his instincts had been right, and that gave him a sense of security he desperately needed lately, about the people he chose to share his days with. It also gave him hope. If Alice had loved him back then, well he was a hell of a better man now... So maybe, just maybe, his instincts were right about Shepard's feelings... and maybe – just maybe – being the man he was _now:_ he could make that work.

"Well..." Zaeed tried with a shrug, "Knowing _her_ , I'm sure she'd've recognised how much you loved her. Can't imagine for a second that she'd've married you if she didn't love _you_. No fucking way she'd ever be so insincere."

That hurt too, because it was probably equally true, but Vladimir deserved to hear it. No point holding onto Alice now. Zaeed shrugged and looked elsewhere, but was glad when eventually he looked back at Vladimir that those words seemed to have eased the pain that was there before.

Vladimir shrugged: "Honestly... I'm not sure she had amnesia as badly as the doctors believed. Perhaps though, it was her way of... moving on."

 _Funny._ Vladimir used this supposition to beat himself up for not being Alice's first choice. Yet Zaeed by default would have used exactly the same information to beat _himself_ up for having fucked up things with Alice so badly that she would walk away and never look back, and that in the end she stopped loving him. _Two sides, same coin... neither perspective right until you take the both together._

"Maybe so. She still chose you." He said, gruffly – the best he could do to put that into words.

"She was determined to make a life she wanted to live, and she worked hard to make it so, even when Vido said we had to jump ship, even when they took our money." Vladimir shook his head and stared off into a corner. "She managed to keep us comfortable, and she loved Uhuru with all her heart. Somehow she always managed to smile. I don't know how she did it..."

Jumping to what their whole family had suffered then, Zaeed's mind streamed with all the curses he wanted to spout for not having killed Vido sooner, for not having known the depth of his betrayal until so long after, for how Vladimir and Uhuru and Alice, had each paid the price for Vido's obsession. It was enough to turn his stomach inside out, but he held it down, and restrained himself from any enraged outbursts. He just nodded along silently.

"...I'm sorry." Zaeed said, and felt the burden of guilt for all the things he constantly now had to remind himself were not his fault. He also had to tell himself not to feel guilty for the things that arguably _were_. After all... Those were the things, he hoped, that could make him and Shepard unbreakable. If Shepard and Alice saw things in him he couldn't see in himself, then that didn't mean those things weren't there. ...And if they _were_ there, he had a second chance at something he'd never have been stupid enough otherwise to even dream about.

Vladimir gestured and Zaeed took back the necklace. "It's OK." He said, and smiled more confidently. "We had many happy years together, despite everything, and Uhuru was the one thing we both loved most about life. Now she is safe. Thanks to you."

Not used to receiving gratitude, Zaeed ducked his head, frowned and looked elsewhere.

"Anyway..." Zaeed cleared his throat and stood up the straighter: "If I have anything to do with it, you'll more than manage from now on."

Vladimir smiled acknowledgement and nodded. It was clear he'd rather live out of nobody else's pocket, and Zaeed had to respect that. Nevertheless at least Vladimir knew the offer was there if he ever needed the help in future.

"Uhuru!" Vladimir then called; her having gone to say goodbye to Thane, Samara, and 'Auntie Shepard'.

A little dark blur of green dress and trailing red ribbons came skidding to a halt in front of Zaeed, who just happened to have stood in line with the doorway. Her face took on the inquisitiveness of not knowing whether what was coming was going to be good or bad, although she was optimistic that it couldn't be _that_ bad.

"Uncle Zaeed has something to say before he goes." Eager brown eyes looked up at Zaeed, full of curiosity.

"I've got something to give you." Zaeed said, and knelt down to show her the golden chain. Her eyes lit up with keen interest.

"That's pretty. What is it?" Uhuru took it from the offering hand, and held it up to the light from the window so that it glittered.

"It's a gold chain, you wear it around your neck." Zaeed unfastened the clasp to show her, and turned over the part where the inscription was written in his fingers for her to see.

"A very, very long time ago..." He swallowed, and bobbed his head from side to side, "...Before your mama had you – and before she married your daddy and was happy – she once gave this to me." Uhuru looked at the writing and read it aloud:

"For you... Zaeed – that's you, right?" Zaeed nodded, a little surprised she was so able for her age. "On your..." She struggled to read the numbers, "Twenty-two 'nd' birthday..."

"That's 'twenty second'. Like 'first', 'second', 'third'..." Zaeed corrected her and Uhuru understood then.

"...Twenty second birth-day... Always... come... home to me... Love Alice – that's mama's name." Zaeed and Vladimir both nodded when she looked up at them to check.

"If Mama loved you, why didn't you come to visit?"

Pain flinched across Zaeed's face. He hadn't expected _that_ question. He looked at Vladimir who thought about it for a moment before nodding:

"It's OK, you can tell her. I think it's for the best."

"Well..." Zaeed cleared his throat and tried to begin. "A very, _very_ long time ago," Zaeed tried to explain, "Your mama loved me like she loved your daddy. But... I wasn't a very good person back then. I wasn't always nice to your Mama. I wasn't nice to a lot of people, so I got in a lot of trouble." Uhuru pulled a disapproving frown and looked utterly unsurprised, folding her arms to wait for the rest of the story: "One day bad people wanted to hurt me, so they decided to hurt your Mama."

"Daddy told me bad people hurt mama," She said then, arms still folded. "...but it was OK because she couldn't remember it."

"That's right." Zaeed's voice cracked a little, it still stung to talk about it, even now, but he persisted: "They were very nasty people. You see afterwards they lied to your daddy, and they lied to me." Uhuru frowned at that, confused, so Zaeed tried to further explain: They hid your mama from me and told me that your Mama was dead. But they told your daddy that I was the one who hurt her." Zaeed felt like he was going to break in two as he tried to tell this story such that a child could understand, without cutting corners, and without more 'colourful metaphors'.

"That's horrible!" Uhuru exclaimed. "Why did they do that?!"

"Well..." – Hadn't expected that question either. "That's harder to explain..." Zaeed hesitated, trying to come up with a way to answer. "Uh... hmm. You see there was this one..." _BASTARD..._ "... _person..._ who uh... didn't like me spending more time with your Mama than him and-"

"He was jealous!" – Uhuhur interrupted. Realising she seemed satisfied by that as an explanation, with great relief he pouted, smiled and agreed; hoping he could leave it there.

"Yeah. Guess you could put it that way." He shrugged, "He lied to keep us apart, but your daddy didn't know. It wasn't his fault. He... loved your Mama very much, and wanted her to be safe so when that guy and his..." ... _Back stabbing sons-of-bitches..._ _"...friends..._ said I wanted to hurt him and your Mama, he believed them. They told him the only way to be safe was to run away and hide, but they told your papa he had to pay for their help, that he _owed_ them – owed them favours."

Zaeed took a breath: "Remember the men you didn't like who used to come to the farm? Those were the same people."

Uhuru gasped in shock, and then frowned almost tearfully: "I HATE them!" She stomped her foot. "I HATE them even more now!"

"You're not the only one sweetheart." Zaeed scoffed, then more sombre: " _Believe me_... You're not the only one."

The sudden uncertainty on Uhuru's face mixed with a little fear, was the first time Zaeed had ever perceived how quick he was to anger, or that such transitions were so... _visible_. He blinked in the realisation: how much deeper perhaps the things he'd gone through ran, and the ways he never before had thought about that they had changed him, through and through.

 _Always thought I liked my pain –_ _needed_ _it... That it made me_ _who __I __am_ _and every goddamned stunt I've pulled in life that I've ever been proud of I couldn't've done without it. But look at her fucking face. She's_ _scared_ _of me... I don't need to scare bloody_ _kids_ _, do I?! I don't fucking want to... and I'm tired of this shit dictating who I am..._

He tried to mellow his expression, to consciously unclench his jaw, and iron out the taught muscles pulled elsewhere over his face. Uhuru, though clearly still a little wary, began to relax back to the impetuous child he'd been getting used to dealing with. The relief of seeing her do that, helped him smile.

"But it's OK now." He tried to pull as gentle an expression as he could, although fuck knows how that turned out, with all his scars... Uhuru looked a little doubtful, so he tried to reassure her:

"You see when you and your daddy saw me and Auntie Shepard at the graveyard, I'd already realised I must have been lied to. Your daddy began to suspect something wasn't right as well. So we sat down and talked about it. That's how we both found out the truth. Then, Shepard and-"

" _Auntie_ Shepard." Zaeed pressed his lips together and puffed air through his nose as he tried to be patient with 'corrections'.

"- _Auntie_ Shepard – and me – decided to make sure there wouldn't be any more lies. That's why your Daddy took you somewhere safe with Thane and Samara. They worked with ... _Auntie_ Shepard and me to keep you and your daddy safe while me n' your Auntie Shepard... sorted everything out."

Zaeed pressed his teeth into his lips as he flexed his jaw, and didn't explain what that really meant they'd done. Uhuru frowned the harder and looked at Zaeed, and nodded sternly. She had that clear look that Alice used to get, when she expected to hear the truth from him and was checking that he absolutely meant what he was saying. It was a piercing look, that shot right through him.

Vladimir touched Uhuru's shoulder: "What Uncle Zaeed means Uhuru, is that the bad people won't come back here ever again."

"They _won't_. Promise." Zaeed frowned – and Uhuru could believe he'd scare just about anyone so, she believed he was telling the truth. "And if _anyone_ gives you trouble again? Your daddy's gonna call me, and they'll have  me to reckon with." Uhuru began to nod slowly but decisively.

"Now..." Zaeed held up the chain, "I think your mama would have wanted you to have this. Would you agree?"

The smile was back, and Uhuru nodded again this time with excitement: "Yes!"

Zaeed held up the necklace, offering to help her put it on. Vladimir directed her to turn around and between the two of them Zaeed managed to fasten the chain around her neck.

"Thank-you Un-cle Za-eed." She chimed almost tunefully, and reached up for a hug. Obliged to return it, Zaeed then found himself holding her tightly. She was a little piece of Alice, this little one, and the hug felt like the forgiveness he'd never have had the gall to think he deserved. His eyes watered, and he internally scolded himself for being such a big softie... Not that he could stop himself, mind. With deliberation he let her go, then he held her little hands in his, looked her in the eye and said:

"Now you have a little piece of your Mama, to take with you wherever you go."

He smiled, then patted her on the head and he stood up to leave. Uhuru's smile widened to a grin at the thought of that and she lost herself in fascination, staring down at the chain that she now twisted between her fingers. She'd never forget this day: the day Uncle Zaeed and Auntie Shepard made the bad men go away.

"Take care of her." Zaeed said to Vladimir over his shoulder as he headed for the door with measured haste before any drops of water actually escaped his eyes.

"I was wrong about you." Vladimir said to his back.

"Not really." Zaeed shrugged, standing in the doorway. "Not back then." Zaeed turned just enough to meet his eyes, having managed to subdue the tears enough to face him, although his expression was still raw.

"Maybe so. But you're a different man now." After a pause, Vladimir added as he folded his arms: "You're a good man."

"Huh." Zaeed laughed.

He was getting used to taking that from Shepard, but getting it from someone _else_ made him question the assumption he tended to fall back on that she must be delusional. He shook his head. After a long pause, because he _really_ didn't know what to say to that, he stepped out of the door, turning only long enough to say:

"...I'm working on it."

* * *

~THE END~

* * *

REFERENCES AND NOTES:

When Zaeed talks about his pain, that's a nod to a scene from the movie 'Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'.

Tori Amos. Lots of her songs work for me in this story. Her earlier stuff suits Jack, Miranda probably likes it all, but the song 'Ribbons Undone' from her album 'The Bee Keeper' is what I always think of when I conceive of Alice and Uhuru. Tori (from what I remember a friend suggesting many years back) went through some rather nasty things. She was raped, and I think later on in life when she first tried fora baby, she miscarried. Don't know if the two are related, but they can be. Nevertheless Tori is an accomplished musician and composer, and she has through her music touched and supported many people.

I'm sure she's had her trials but, that one song for me, makes me just tear up every time... because it's this lovely, sweet little song about the daughter she finally had. It's just one of those "She made it!". Not because she 'had a family' or that children equate to 'happily ever after' - I know that's not the life that everyone wants. However, Tori wanted it, and I love that song because despite everything she went through, she lived a successful, amazing life, and I like to hope: finally got the things that really mattered to her.

Speaking of happy endings... Miranda and Jack deserve one. I can't help but ask myself how much they'd grow as people, if they could find a way to get along - as friends, or friends and lovers. ;)

I hope you've enjoyed my story of Shepard and Zaeed. I understand it's possible Mass Effect Andromeda might have broken my headcannon here, so as I was just finishing the last chapters when I heard the tidbit from another fan, I struggled to finish this. I really went to great effort to make my stories _fit_ into the Mass Effect universe so you can imagine my frustration! Everything from the location of Mindoir and Vido's base, to the fact that Zaeed's age doesn't match records that list his history (inconsistencies that would suggest he set up the Blue Suns at the age of 13 if those activities _and_ his age were true, for example). I might have missed a few things here and there, but not for not trying I assure you!

I've poured a lot of wisdom into these works. I only hope my own story can incorporate as much, but fanfiction offers a rare opportunity to draw upon things that otherwise I think you'd have to be really careful about. I mean... Maybe _I_ think a song works for this story, but the people who made that song might fervently despise computer games and resent any connection to one at all... It can a tricky job, 'nodding' to things you love that inspired you. It's been a great experience though, having to write within strict confines (but not the daunting task of doing that *and* setting all those confines) of a pre-existing universe, not to mention innovatively coming up with ways to resolve the odd conflicts that Mass Effect came with.

This is the last story I plan to write that isn't original, although I might still write from time too time. I wanted to finish this for the fans who've followed.

Thanks very much to those of you who've given me reviews and encouragement. It really has been appreciated!


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